Same date, same venue, different year… Last Saturday, Silverstein was back at Le National in Montreal for a night their fans won’t forget! They came with their friends from Being As An Ocean, Emarosa, Cardinal Prides and RARITY.
The pop punk quintuplet RARITY from Hamilton, Ontario started the night with a delightful set. With a sound that we could compare to the Story So Far, Real Friends or even Knuckle Puck, the band made the crowd jump off their feet right at the beginning of their set, until the end of it. I was missing my khaki shorts and my slice of pizza to have a full pop punk experience but I was definitely enjoying it! Let’s not forget about the singer’s Alexisonfire tattoo that I loved. RARITY had great energy and contact with the crowd, and their screamer had some solid skills that might even scare you. You definitely can’t expect his voice to sound like this when you take a first look at him. Their performance was entertaining and I look forward hearing them again in the future, and hopefully witnessing them headlining their own tour in the next couple years. I would advise you to check out some of their songs like “Anne Hathaway” or “Stranger”, and to pick up their debut record I Couldn’t Be Weaker, to be released on April 15th.
Cardinals Pride was next. The venue was slowly getting more crowded as I was waiting for their set to start. Their sound was definitely more hardcore / metalcore than the first band. The two screamers Alexis and Mathieu are quite skilled and have such energy on stage that you had to get into it after the first couple minutes listening to them. Mosh pits formed in the crowd pretty quickly to add intensity to the performance. I admit I only heard of them a few times before on the local scene but wasn’t expecting them to actually be Québécois, so it was a great surprise hearing them speak French to the crowd. Fans seem to know them and to be more into it than into the first band. Their energy and presence was increasing step by step throughout the set and definitely left me with a positive feeling. The 6 piece band ended their set with “Materials”, a metalcore pleasure to my ears that was originally recorded with Joey Turner (Give it a listen!).
Emarosa was the third band to perform that night. Putting incense all over the place for a homie feeling (I guess?), the band made their way on stage. Singer Bradley Walden, wearing a jacket with a hood, started the first song under the ovation of the crowd. He even did a front flip on the floor to give himself some energy for the set to come. With no hesitation whatsoever, he also decided to go in the crowd during that first song. The next one was entitled “Mad”, taken from Versus, their latest album. After a couple songs, the singer finally got rid of his jacket, but was still acting strange on stage. What do you mean by strange you may ask? Well, he literally took the bassist and made him flip, but also got on a fan’s shoulders during the third song, jumped over the drum set, and finally got in the crowd with the guitarist on his shoulders… Emarosa doesn’t mess around when it comes to put on a show! Bradley Walden is a real show man and even brought a ladder in the middle of the crowd to prove it! Overall, their set was quite amazing and I hope I’ll get to see them again soon.
Melodic hardcore band Being As An Ocean was the final band before Silverstein. I had the opportunity to see them a couple times already, along with Stick to Your Guns and another time with Hundredth. Singer Joel Quartuccio, like Emarosa’s singer, likes to get as close as possible to the crowd to sing his songs, and fans loved the gesture! The band started off with “Nothing Saves the Power They’re Given”, first song taken from their first record, Dear G-D. They continued with a hit song, “The Hardest Part Is Forgetting Those You Swore You Would Never Forget”. The band also played songs from their latest album, released a year ago but I could tell that the crowd (or was it just me?) was not into it as much as they were into older songs. Nevertheless, singer Joel Quartuccio was on his knees, screaming from the top of his lungs, for an exceptional live performance, hitting you right in the face with emotion and feelings coming right from the heart. A moshpit taking half of the crowd started after a few minutes, and the singer even took some risks to get on the top of a speaker to give us an eventful show. Being As An Ocean also played another song I truly love, “L’Exquisite Douleur”, and finished their set with the passionate “This Loneliness Won’t Be The Death Of Me”.
Closing out the night was Canada’s post-hardcore band Silverstein. The wait for them went by pretty fast, while listening to Queen’s songs such as “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Another One Bites The Dust” or “We Will Rock You”, singing along with everyone around me. The venue was packed as the band started to play “Stand Amid the Roar”, from This Is How the Wind Shifts. Next was “Face of the Earth”, taken from their latest album I Am Alive in Everything I Touch, followed by “Your Sword versus my Dagger” from Discovering The Waterfront. I love the dual vocals during the latter one, switching from low screams to melodic vocals to the chorus, it’s purely fantastic! We also had the pleasure to hear “Massachusetts”, one of my favourite songs from them, about domestic violence, as well as one of the heaviest songs to date from the band, “I Am The Arsonist”.
Silverstein also performed “In the Dark”, “Sacrifice” and “Red Light Pledge”, before “Smile In Your Sleep”, a song that I will always appreciate. The fact that the song dramatically gets slower towards the last minute with another breakdown at the end makes it being a real eargasm. This night was not only enjoyable thanks to the band’s music, but also thanks to the crowd friendliness. I could tell that everyone was here to have an amazing time. It’s so much better to me than having fangirls screaming and pushing all over the place for no reason… That night was a night of fun and pure enjoyment of ourselves.
A few songs later, the band went on with “Call It Karma” and “My Heroine” right before the Encore. The same magical moment as last year happened: the whole crowd was shouting the lyrics from the top of their lungs as the band was standing on stage and singing along with them. It’s times like these that make me want to stay in this moment and go to as many shows as I can. The last two songs of the night were “Toronto”, an illustrious acoustic performance by Shane Told, and the old school “Smashed Into Pieces”, perfect example from their emo period. Like last year, guitarists Paul Marc Rousseau and Josh Bradford seemed to have a blast on stage, throwing their picks at crowd and also giving away the setlists to their fans. I don’t regret falling into those guys’ music 11 years ago, and I look forward seeing them another time.
Bonus: I was lucky enough to get on Silverstein’s tour bus and have a quick talk with their drummer Paul Koehler. You can check it out here soon…
Silverstein’s Setlist:
Stand Amid the Roar
Face of the Earth
Your Sword Versus My Dagger
Massachusetts
I Am the Arsonist
In the Dark
Sacrifice
Red Light Pledge
Smile in Your Sleep
Vices
The Continual Condition
In Silent Seas We Drown
One Last Dance
Call It Karma
My Heroine
Encore:
Toronto
Smashed Into Pieces
Review – Maxime Lehuidoux
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