It was a celebratory night at The Granada as a packed theater came to witness Senses Fail’s Life Is Not a Waiting Room played in full for its 15th anniversary with support from Holding Absence and remorsefully numb. Thousand Below was originally set to play first, but van issues forced them to cancel a couple dates including this one. remorsefully numb came to the rescue the day of the show to get the crowd warmed up for what would be an energetic night.
remorsefully numb came on stage with a post-hardcore vibe that fit both sides of the musical spectrum. At some points, the soft reverbed guitar lines airing through in the atmosphere left room for vocalist Andrew Gibson to leave waves of quiet lines, just before bursting into some screams to get build the momentum of the room. The flow between all members felt very natural, which in turn made it easy for the audience to sway or bop their head to the beat a little bit. Nothing really hit me as a standout performance, but there’s enough that left me wanting to take my phone out and save their Spotify to at least give their music a chance.
Holding Absence was honestly the main reason I was there as they quickly became a top 3 artist of all time for me. Fresh with their new album The Noble Art of Self Destruction, I was excited to hear some of these new songs live. Immediately kicking it (literally jump in the air kicks) into high gear, Her Wings got the crowd moving and headbanging as vocalist Lucas Woodland brought the high notes out already for everyone to scream. Something I loved about this band’s performance is how energetic the entire band is: Woodland constantly jumping and kicking the air, guitarist Scott Carey swinging and headbanging through his riffs, bassist Benjamin Elliot doing backbends before dropping back down to the beats, and drummer Ashley Green being one of the most consistently moving drummers I've ever seen. The setlist consisted of mostly new material, such as Scissors, A Crooked Melody, Honey Moon, and The Angel in the Marble, and I was specifically thankful for the last one as it is one of my favorite songs to come out this year. Holding Absence gave such an energetic and emotional performance that made it hard for something to top that in my opinion.
When it was time for Senses Fail to come on stage, the lights were down, and the sound was slowly starting to fade in before diving into a full album’s worth of performances. I hardly knew any of their music beforehand, but fans were already screaming the lyrics as soon as they began to play, which is always a good sign for the night. As they played through the entirety of Life Is Not a Waiting Room, I began to pick up on their signature performance techniques, such as vocalist James “Buddy” Nielsen swinging the microphone everywhere he can on that stage, guitarist Jason Milbank leaning forward to sing the lyrics with the crowd, and hilarious banter in between songs between all members. It was a fun journey progressing through the album as the performance kept everyone engaged and attentive to their movements, and some bigger hits came for their encore that started getting mosh pits circling. I hardly knew anything coming into this show, but this set turned me into a fan and will listen through their catalog now.
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