I was fortunate to catch The Devil Wears Prada on their headlining tour in support of their new record 8:18, on the third-to-last date of their 7-week-long tour, as they came through Worcester, MA, bringing along supporting acts, The Ghost Inside, Volumes, and Texas In July. The Worcester Palladium wasn’t sold-out that night, but the lower level was pretty packed, with at least 500 fans in attendance on a bitterly cold winter night.
While the tour probably featured some of the worst examples of stage lighting I’ve ever seen (especially during Texas In July and The Ghost Inside), thanks to the magic of Photoshop Lightroom (and hours of editing), you can find photographs of all four acts below!
Texas In July were the first to take the stage, with new frontman J.T. Cavey and touring guitarist, Cam Welsh. This is the first time I’ve seen TIJ with their new lineup, a change that had happened during the Vans Warped Tour this past summer. Cavey is certainly a very capable replacement, and was actually better than I recall former vocalist, Alex Good, being. Their set was relatively short, as they were in the opening slot, but they were able to fit in several of their more well-known songs, including “Magnolia”, “Hook, Line, and Sinner”, and “Bed of Nails” from their past releases, and “Cry Wolf” and “C4” from their self-titled record released last year. Drummer, Adam Gray put on a great show as usual, spinning and tossing his sticks up in the air, and catching them again, all while playing, without missing a single beat.
Volumes were up next and I’ll admit I had pretty low expectations for their set. I’d seen them once prior in the same venue and their performance had been less than tight, and almost reminiscent of a rap concert in terms of the degree to which their instrumentation was provided through backing tracks. While tonight was definitely better, with vocalists Michael Barr and Gus Farias much-improved from when I’d seen them before, the band still relied on prerecorded tracks for all of their clean vocals, synth (which isn’t a huge deal), and–I’m 99% sure–an entire guitar track (as opposed to having a second guitarist). I guess they somewhat made up for this (though not completely) with their stage presence–they were easily the most active band of the night and climbed up onto the barriers and into the audience a few times–and kids in the crowd did go nuts during their set (I was dodging crowd surfers in the photo pit for most of the first three songs). Their set featured fan-favorites “Edge of the Earth” , “Wormholes”, and other tracks from 2011’s Via, but their most recently released single, “Vahle”, was noticeably absent from their set.
Los Angeles melodic hardcore act, The Ghost Inside took to the stage and put on an impressive, if dimly lit, 10-song set that was sure to satisfy any die-hard TGI fan in attendance. Vocalist Jonathan Vigil was on top of his game tonight, and seemed to be everywhere at once, only pausing for a few seconds in a spot before leaping elsewhere on the stage. They didn’t really have to ask the crowd to go crazy during their set–they already were doing it, with the number of crowd surfers exceeding the number of event staff available to catch them at several points during their set. TGI’s set included “Engine 45”, “Outlive”, “Dark Horse”, and more from their 2012 release, Get What You Give, they also reached back into their discography to play fan-favorites “Unspoken” (off of 2010’s Returners) and “Faith or Forgiveness” (from 2007’s Fury and the Fallen Ones). The coolest moment in the set though wasn’t really during one of their songs, but rather when Vigil made a special announcement that the band would be playing all of Vans Warped Tour this coming year. This would later be announced after the airing of the television show, Warped Roadies on FUSE that evening, but it was neat to find out early from Vigil himself! During their set they were joined onstage by Matty Arsenault, frontman for the highly popular Boston pop-punk act, A Loss For Words, and on another song by Texas In July vocalist, J.T. Cavey.
After ~20 minutes of tear-down/set-up time, Ohioans, The Devil Wears Prada, flanked by gratuitous amounts of green lighting, hit the stage before a roaring audience to the opening notes of their song, “Gloom” and proceded to put on a neck-pain-inducing set of 16 songs. As the tour was in support of the new record, 8:18, they did play new tracks, including “First Sight”, “War”, “Care More”, “8:18”, and more. They also played several from 2011’s Dead Throne, and even a few older songs, including “Assistant to the Regional Manager” and “Danger:Wildman.” Frontman Mike Hranica, was amazing! I’ve never seen him perform so well and hadn’t expected him to given that this was the third-to-last day of the tour. He isn’t someone who tends to spend much time talking, and tonight was no different, much of their set was taken up solely by their music, though he did pause to give a shoutout to one concert-goer, who was crowd-surfing the whole night in a Gumby costume, and dedicated the last song of their two-song encore, “Mammoth” (Video available here), to him.
All four acts put on a great show that evening, and definitely made my 4-hour travel to cover the show worth the effort! There are no confirmed US tour dates for TDWP in 2014 as of yet, but if any do get announced, it’d be worth your time to check them out!
