August Burns Red return to Pittsburgh

Once again, Lancaster legends August Burns Red swung by Pittsburgh for the Messengers 10^th anniversary tour. Since their “go to” venue has been shut down (Altar Bar) they ended up at Mr. Smalls for the occasion. Deciding to tour and celebrate one of their heaviest and fastest albums seemed like it would be a crazy idea for them after coming off of their most intricate album (Found in Far Away Places) to date. Luckily it brought out the diehard ABR fans to these shows who remember seeing them ten years ago when this album first came out. That being said, crazy may be an understatement for Wednesday night since there were endless crowd surfers and moshers from start to finish.

At the very start of the show, maybe about halfway through the first song, Jake Luhrs (vocals) stopped singing to help one of the photographers out of the pit actually because it ended up getting way to hectic for anyone to be down there with all the crowd surfers falling over the barricade. After leaving the stage, the band continued to finish the song before stopping to wait for the return of their frontman. When coming back on stage, he had a brief statement about having fun but staying safe. From that point they continued on with playing the Messengers album all the way through before returning to the stage for one of Matt’s famous drum solos followed by some of their hits such as: Empire, White Washed, and Ghosts.

Every single time I end up covering ABR I feel as if I always leave with a drive to listen and play music so much more than I ever would at another concert. From the professionalism to the offstage generosity these guys have is just mindboggling sometimes. Plus getting some of the best pictures of my career of them definitely helps. All in all, their shows are some of the best metalcore performances out there and the fact that they are in the writing process for another album makes my hair stand on edge for how excited I am.

Photos Below!

Setlist: