Words and pix: Dave Mondine © 2018

Round two of the “Reverence World Tour,” Byron Bay’s own Parkway Drive had Pittsburgh slated for yet another visit to Stage AE, and this time with an even bigger lineup than before.  This tour, which was announced two weeks after their last visit to Pittsburgh earlier this year, brought us not only Parkway Drive, but also Polaris, and Pittsburgh favorites The Devil Wears Prada, and August Burns Red.  Any fan of the metalcore scene should have been at this banger of a show, and I am positive they were.

 

After their performance earlier this year, expectations were fairly high since they just crushed their performance that night.  Following the Grammy Nominated metal band from Lancaster PA, August Burns Red, was going to be no picnic either one would say, but there is a reason PWD has been headlining shows for so long now, and they did exactly that once again.  Opening up with the nice slow intro that leads into two of their newest songs (Wishing Wells and Prey) was a nice way to start the night before they started to break out the hits throughout their career.  One thing is for certain, they were not shy of playing a solid mixture of songs from their official full-length sophomore album, all the way up to their latest release.  So for old and new school fans, all would have found themselves enjoying the entirety of the show.

 

One of the biggest compliments you can give PWD, is no matter how fast and heavy their music was, they always found room for loud, epic singalong parts that needed crowd participation to get the full effect.  That being said, frontman Winston McCall did not have many issues with that Thursday night in the least; if he asked for something, the audience did exactly that, sometimes even before he asked.  Thus began a very exciting night due to the fact that it has been quite a long time since I have seen the entire floor open up for a pit like it did that night and the number of people that weren’t even in the pit jumping and screaming the way they were.  It was unlike any metal show I have ever been to!  The moment that “Karma” and “Boneyards” started up, it was complete chaos, but in the best of ways.

 

Probably one of the biggest highlights to me was PWD playing “Cemetery Bloom” with a silhouette view of Winston and Jeff playing throughout the whole song.  Just the tension and build up that song has was a nice intermission break before jumping back into some more energetic songs.  Before the night was over, we even had the chance to hear “Idols and Anchors” along with “Dead Man’s Chest” from back in the day.  Yet the return to the stage for their encore happened to hit even harder with “Crushed” and “Bottom Feeder.”

 

Its honestly quite amazing how watching PWD from the club venues way back when, are selling out large-scale music venues, headlining festivals, and one of the top bands on Epitaphs Record Label now, and they have no signs of stopping.  They do their own thing, and all of a sudden they have a new album coming out that just keeps getting bigger and bigger every time they announce something like that.  Earlier this year I talked about how they are evolving and maturing with the music they have been producing, but look at the success rate of it… its mind blowing on how much more it has taken them all while still being the same band yet still improving as musicians more than anything else.  These are the moments where you just can’t help yourself but be happy for them and watching it all unfold in front of our eyes.  Needless to say, while they’re still in the states, you should check out one of their remaining tour dates before they head back out, it’ll be worth it trust me.

 

Setlist:

  1. Wishing Wells
  2. Prey
  3. Vice Grip
  4. Carrion
  5. Karma
  6. Dedicated
  7. Boneyards
  8. Cemetery Bloom
  9. The Void
  10. Idols and Anchors
  11. Dead Man’s Chest
  12. Absolute Power
  13. Wild Eyes

Encore:

  1. Crushed
  2. Bottom Feeder

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