It’s been 5 and a half years since Avenged Sevenfold had last toured the U.S., even longer for a new album. I remember them saying somewhere that when they felt like they had something to say to the world is when they would bring us both of these things; the time has come as they have brought us Life Is But a Dream…, an album that takes the concepts from The Stage about the grand cosmic concept of life and questioning everything and brings that energy inward to deep dive into yourself through the themes of existentialism and death. Sounds disturbing at first, but I felt like the show they performed at Kansas City’s T-Mobile Center displayed what they are trying to tell the world now.
The show started off with Game Over, the first song off the new album that talks about a person describing their life before they die, and it began with vocalist M. Shadows sitting in the middle of the stage with a black ski mask on. Immediately after the music kicked in, Shadows started chanting out random words that represent everything this person in the song did in their lifetime while remaining completely still in the chair. Once the bridge comes along, Shadows gets up with only a spotlight directly on him, and the rest of the band come back to life as the outro slams back in. This lead straight into Mattel, a song comparing toy-like characteristics to real-life behaviors. The stage has 3 big screens to pair background visuals with the themes of the songs, which I felt was an interesting choice to match with the overall concept of the show and album: using a screen to provide a “fake” set of visuals instead of building a real physical set on stage to represent the facades we put on in our lives to hide us from the fact of what’s really going on in life. I felt like this setup was very prominent with this song as it switches musically and visually between the lighter and darker moods, as visuals of houses were shown for the former and walls of flames for the latter.
The rest of the set bounced between older songs and fresh material with Afterlife and Hail to the King next. Shadows admitted in between these songs that he lost the mask he usually wears for the first song and had to go run and get one before coming on stage. This mask had a string coming off it that accidentally went down his throat as he was performing and almost choked on it. He also admitted at some point in the show that this date on the tour was actually the least-selling date but felt as if it was one of the more energetic and interactive crowds. Mosh pits were forming for every song, and crowd surfers were making their way to the front where Shadows was even giving them a high five or a fist bump. Lead guitarist Synyster Gates was shredding his signature solos, rhythm guitarist Zacky Vengeance and bassist Johnny Christ dialed in with each other providing a solid foundation to work with, and drummer Brooks Wackerman providing both the in-the-pocket grooves for everyone to work around and the complex fills that bring the instrumentation to another level. One of my favorite moments came from The Stage when Gates took over an acoustic guitar after the song ended to fiddle around for fun, which really showed how easily talented it was for him to just pick up a guitar and play anything. So Far Away brought out the waterworks among the crowd as it was dedicated to anyone who had lost someone, dead or alive, in their lives with visuals of the late The Rev behind them.
The first song that released from the newest album Nobody came next, and it really took me by surprise how massive it was live. I will admit I was one of those people who were skeptical about this new album from this song, but everything clicked once I heard the album in full. The same thing had happened here to elevate that feeling where this performance will forever stick with me when I hear this song. Beginning with the chorus, the space between hits felt spaciously open as it felt hard-hitting, but also flowed smoothly at the same time. Leading into the post-chorus, it felt like every member was doing something unique that when you look at the combined effort among the band, it seemed overwhelming in a positive way. Then suddenly, everything slams like a switch was shut off, and the vocals rise along with the lights illuminating the audience. After a 30 second dead silence, the signature guitar riff brought the room back to life as we went through the rest of the song. Next four songs were Avenged Sevenfold setlist staples, Nightmare, Bat Country, Unholy Confessions, and A Little Piece of Heaven, each one providing nostalgia for those hardcore fans that have been with them for many years.
The encore came as a shock to me as I never thought I would see them play G, (O)rdinary, and (D)eath from their new album. They were a combined experience played back-to-back that contained unexplored territories the band hadn’t done before until now. Something I noticed was a lot of fans leaving during this part, and I felt like it’s just one of those “either you get it or you don’t” type of moments. Earlier, I mentioned that everything clicked when I heard the album for the first time, and this was actually my favorite part of the set because I felt like I understood what they were trying to do with this whole show; they were trying to get people to wake up and just experience their lives. We spend so much of our time putting up these fake lives either on social media or in person, whether it’s to impress people, to hide the fact that we aren’t actually doing okay, or maybe it’s just to numb everything that’s happening around us in the environment and in the world that we feel we have no control over. Instead, that ideology is just hurting us more because we aren’t actually living and experiencing life the way it should be; we’re just barely existing and letting time slip by when we already have a very finite amount to begin with. It’s supposed to feel like a wake-up call, and it’s an unbelievable way of showing it.