Boysetsfire

The stage was dark, and then before the strobes began madly flashing, Nathan Gray’s voice shouted over the auditorium, ‘is everybody ready to get crazy? Let’s make some noise!’ As the band came out on stage and took their places behind their respective instruments, the crowd erupted and everyone was screaming in anticipation of them starting their set.

They each played a short instrumental solo before Gray launched back into the coevals, and they opened the set with Bled Dry. They encouraged everyone to sing along, and Chris Rakus on the bass signalled to everyone to clap along with the beat of the song. Although they’ve had several line up changes over the years since their days in the early 90s, they’re still as strong as ever, and I think that the refresh of members has stopped their music from getting stale and overplayed.

They played a great selection of tracks from across the eras of their career, and performed all out throughout the show. When they played Requiem, all of the band members were dancing around the stage giving it their all, and I have no idea how they maintained such solid performances whilst exhilarating themselves so much!

Post-Hardcore Delaware outfit Boysetsfire have a good following across the States and the UK for their anthemic, often melodic sound that has captured the attention of fans since they first appeared on the circuit with a solid debut album titled 'The Day the Sun Went Out' in 1997.

It is testament to their dedication of the live circuit that they now command a stage as they confidently saunter on and greet the crowd. It is difficult to make them out to begin with as the stage is nearly in total pitch black darkness before strobes kick in time for opener 'Bled Dry'. It appears to be an exercise in demonstrating the band's instrumental capabilities as the five musicians come together to create a huge sound that sounds almost artificially made. The current lineup has remained unchanged for the past decade so therefore the dynamics onstage are awesome and they are able to get the crowd onboard with their enthusiastic energy throughout the show before it all accumulates in a rousing rendition of 'Rookie' to suitably end the evening.