Seeing Thrice never gets old, honestly. Their last visit in 2023 playing their iconic third record The Artist In The Ambulance in full was one for the ages, but their regular “album cycle” show has always been pretty fantastic too, and tonight is no exception.
A third of the 21-song set draws from new record Horizons/West, their 12th overall. Arriving on stage in thick smoke, the band starts with album opener Blackout, a moody dim-lit couple of minutes that erupts into some of the brightest lights I’ve ever seen at a show for the last chorus, before total darkness returns. Gnash immediately follows, and sounds equally massive, seamlessly flipping between metal and synth. Holding On is an absolute banger, the band throwing all the necessary shapes to make it look even cooler, while Crooked Shadows gets the pit heaving so maniacally you’d think it was one of the classics; the resonant singalong to Albatross suggests the same thing. In introducing encore song Vesper Light, frontman Dustin Kensrue describes how it was only in the set as a result of so many fans requesting it! Horizons/West is a record that is clearly resonating with the fanbase, and on the strength of tonight’s offerings, it’s easy to see why.
The other two-thirds of the set dips into 7 of the other 11 albums of their catalogue, and shows just how consistent the band have been over the course of their career. Obviously, the three songs from The Artist In The Ambulance detonate the pit instantaneously; I pretty much lose my voice before the title track is over! Paper Tigers and Stare at the Sun are insanity, Dustin stepping back from his mic on the latter to let us sing the outro; it’s absolutely deafening. Guitarist Teppei Teranishi takes to the piano for the intro of the haunting For Miles, from 2005’s majestic Vheissu, before it escalates into that apocalyptic masterpiece. Honestly, just wow.
In Exile, my standout track from 2018’s Palms, is one of those songs that I completely forgot about, so that’s a wonderful surprise when it arrives, and draws another massive singalong; the same thing applies to Black Honey from 2016’s To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere. Teppei adds harmonies on the anthemic Beyond the Pines, before bassist Eddie Breckenridge joins in to make it a triple harmony on the mellow mid-section of The Earth Will Shake, which only serves to make the outro sound even more devastating when it drops. The iconic Deadbolt closes out the 90-minute set with the most intense pit of the night, limbs flailing and bodies ricocheting to create such a vortex that I get sucked into it from my spot on the fence. My life flashes before my eyes, but I make it out alive.
“Thanks to everyone that’s been listening forever!” declares Dustin towards the end of the set. When they sound this good, we’ll keep on listening!
Setlist
- Deadbolt
- Blackout
- Gnash
- The Artist in the Ambulance
- Hurricane
- Holding On
- For Miles
- Paper Tigers
- The Dark Glow
- Still Life
- The Window
- Stare at the Sun
- Crooked Shadows
- In Exile
- Of Dust and Nations
- Black Honey
- Albatross
- Beyond the Pines
- Robot Soft Exorcism
- The Earth Will Shake
Encore
- Vesper Light
Support came from Modern Color.
Review – Simon Williams
Photos – Susan Moss
