Celebrating ten years of their sophomore album “This is Exile,” Whitechapel had Pittsburgh set for the first date on the second leg of the tour alongside fellow deathcore bands Chelsea Grin, Oceano, and Slaughter to Prevail. Starting off their last tour of the year with a sold-out show is pretty ideal as well, but sets high expectations for the rest of the tour one would think. Pretty safe to say that having the line to get into Rex Theater wrapping around the entire block is a sign for good night on a Thursday Night down on East Carson Street.
Chelsea Grin being the direct support for Whitechapel during this tour was something a lot of people were looking forward to. The lineup changes they’ve had over the past couple of years did not lead their fanbase astray whatsoever, and getting a taste of what their latest lineup can really do during the Warped tour this past summer helped tremendously it seemed. Being only a four-piece band now, Chelsea Grin still hit the stage as hard as they ever did. They’re latest album release helped show that metal music isn’t going away anytime soon for them. During their set, they played a solid mixture of songs over the course of their career, but mostly songs from their latest album “Eternal Nightmare.” I was a little upset that they played nothing off of “Ashes to Ashes” but it is understandable that they wanted to promote more of their latest songs rather than some from a few years back. Having only about an eight-song set doesn’t help as much when you want to cover a fair sized discography in such a short time frame. Needless to say, Whitechapel was in need of a bigger time slot since they had a lot of plans for this tour it seemed.
So let’s start with this, the first time I ever saw Whitechapel was when “This is Exile” first came out…ten years ago now… it sunk in pretty quick that I’m getting old. Curiosity had struck me that night, because being the first night of the tour, you don’t know what to expect since there is no setlist for the night until that first show, so it was exciting to see what other songs they would pick to play if any. Starting off the night with frontman Phil Bozeman, running straight out onto the stage to start with the blistering song “Faces” was a nice change of pace. No opening act, no build up intro, just straight to the good stuff. Whitechapel then followed up with “Elitist Ones” and “The Saw is the Law.” Pittsburgh was even the first city to see Whitechapel play their new song “Brimstone” (released that afternoon) before playing “This is Exile” from front to back in its entirety. Talk about living those high school days again when “Father of Lies” kicked in followed up by the title track, and the fan favorite “Possession.”
With “This is Exile” being played in its entirety, I truly forgot how fantastic that album really was. Songs that I haven’t seen played live in a long time, and most people have never seen at all, just another blast from the past in Pittsburgh. Whitechapel’s sophomore album really skyrocketed their career in the metal scene, and they’ve never taken a step back since then as not just a band, but musicians. The album that they are about a release in the spring next year, I wouldn’t expect anything less than well-constructed, heavy hitting riffs, and vocals that will always blow most vocalists out of the water. So summing it up, celebrating the past that helped define a career is something that I can honestly say was amazing as I expected it to be, but looking forward to what the future holds for this band, is just as good.
Setlist:
- Faces
- Elitist Ones
- The Saw is the Law
- Brimstone
- Father of Lies
- This is Exile
- Possession
- To All That Are Dead
- Exalt
- Somatically Incorrect
- Death Becomes Him
- Daemon (The Procreated)
- Eternal Refuge
- Of Legions
- Messiahbolical