Uproar Tour 2011

I planned on surprising my little brother with Five Finger Death Punch tickets as a welcome home from Iraq present, but he surprised me with tickets to Uproar for last weekend.  We made plans to leave at 7am Sunday morning and he surprised me yet again by showing up a half hour early demanding that we leave right then.  I threw a stack of clothes into a bag and climbed in the car, still sporting Looney Tunes pajamas.  It wasn’t until we were about 30 minutes out of town the thought “Oh God, did I pack pants?” enter my mind.   I lucked out with a pair that apparently I had not worn much less washed since the Foo Fighters were in Missoula (I discovered this when I found my Foo ticket stub in the pocket). 

The show begins: The Fail Safe Project from Spokane won the Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands and got to open for the Uproar Line up.  Hell or Highwater (side project of Brandon Saller of Atreyu) played next followed by Black Tide and the Art of Dying.  I am still hating myself for missing Sevendust’s set, but 9(energy drink)+overfull bladder + bodily mosh pit compression= bad news. VIP passes allowed us to make it through the line early, but once inside, I couldn’t find the floor access.  The Spokane arena is a circular hallway with the event center in the middle.  I must have ran 5 miles worth of laps around the event center looking for a stairway to the floor, thus missing Escape the Fate.  Epic fail #2.  I finally made it to the floor for Bullet for My Valentine and started working my way to the front of the pit. I was almost to the middle by the time Seether made it on stage and had some guy turn back to me and tell me “If you don’t want to get hurt, you don’t want to stand here.” My initial though was wtf? Is this guy threatening me?  “this is where everyone goes crazy in the mosh” he continued.  The thought of a “dangerous mosh pit” during Seether was entertaining, especially after witnessing a Summer Slaughter pit.

 I had been waiting for years to see 3 Days Grace live.  Wish granted! Adam Gontier   (3DG vox) even joined Seether for part of their set before coming out for 3 Days Grace.  They owned the place from beginning to end.  The mic stand looked like someone had ripped the arm off of the Terminator and placed a mic in its hand.  Near the end of their set, people were shouts demands to hear Riot.  Adam announced the band had been asked  not to play that song.  Everyone went crazy! The boos were almost louder than the speakers I was standing in front of!  “F**k it, we’re gonna play Riot” boos switched to cheers and the song began.

 The things that majorly suck about waiting between sets:  1)  you are compressed “nut to butt” with complete strangers,   2)if you move, you lose your spot,   and even more disturbing is the thought that you would rather deal with the sweat and copped feels (intentional or not) of these strangers rather than move for the ½ hour wait and not get your spot back.  I had gotten all the way to the rail just after 3 Days Grace. A7X was next and I was NOT going to miss anymore music than I already had.  This was my 2^nd time for A7X but the last time I saw them, I was so far back, I couldn’t tell half of what was going on. Not this time. 

 The black curtain finally dropped, roars of the crowd and blasting pyrotechnics sounded off.  I don’t want to give away too much about Avenged Sevenfold's how and ruin it for all the first timers who will see them this December.  All I’m going to say is expect an awesome night.  They only had about an hour to play at Uproar but within that time, they played at least 3 songs from waking the fallen (2^nd release, when I first found out about them) and it was so good to hear some older A7X music.  I can’t wait to see them at the Adams Center!