Silverstein Comes To Boston
You never know where you may end up on a Saturday in Boston, but in my case, I found myself at the House of Blues jamming out to the legendary Silverstein, along with Thursday, Split Chain and Arms Length.
The moment you enter Lansdowne St, there is a lengthy line anticipating the show to start. At 5:00 pm, the light outside dimmed with just an hour left until the doors opened. The merch line for Silverstein was packed, everywhere you looked there was a fan with either Silverstein or Thursday concert merch on.
Split Chain, from the UK, opened up for the show, with this being their first time touring the US. Split Chains music is a metal mix with shoegaze. The crowd immediately opened up a circle pit, you could see people doing cartwheels and moshing as they played their first song on the set, Haven. As they continued their set, more people started to crowd surf & the sounds of fans roaring their lyrics became louder.
Next on stage, was Arm's Length from Canada. They are most known for their indie, emo-punk songs. They opened their set with "In Loving Memory" from the album, "Never Before Seen, Never Again Found" which debuted back in 2022. They played a 6 song set including, "In Loving Memory", "Funny Face", "Object Permanence", Formative Age", "Tough Love", "Overture", and "Garamond." Towards the middle of their set, the fans started another moshpit, just visibly becoming larger.
Here comes Thursday, from NJ, to unquestionably destroy the stage. The lead singer, Geoff Rickly, talked about how appreciative he was that Silverstein asked him to come on tour, and how he was "squished" between two amazing Canadian-based bands in the lineup. Geoff continued to mention how he & Silverstein used to not get along until Shane Told, vocalist of Silverstein; invited Geoff to his podcast and it has been great since then. Thursday played a 10-song set with absolute bangers such as, "Cross Out The Eyes", "The Lovesong Writer", and "War All the Time." During the last few songs, a dozen crowd surfers were coming from every given direction. In the middle of "Taking Inventory of a Frozen Lake", Geoff pointed at me as he noticed I was yelling every lyric to the masterpiece of a song.
There were about 8 minutes between sets as they cleared the stage for Silverstein. Before the boys made their first appearance on stage, they played a video compilation of them performing throughout the past 25 years through the screens and it was so heartwarming. With this being their celebration tour of 25 years of noise, the compilation was a beautiful way to display all the hard work they did, and how far they have come over the last 2 and a half decades. They played a 21-song set; with their most known songs, "Smile In Your Sleep", "Call It Karma", and "Sacrifice." Of course, the encore was "Smashed Into Pieces", and "Bleeds No More." I wouldn't have assumed it to be any other songs, they are a great fit! The crowd became rougher as the songs went on, so many crowd surfers and a huge circle pit. Mid-song, Billy, the guitarist, and Shane, the vocalist did a silly dance, Shane jumped on the lifted part of the stage and had Billy hold his hand as he jumped down. They decided to play "My Heroine" acoustically, it was the most magical experience. The crowd sang along, but not too loud so you could still hear Shanes's phenomenal vocals. There was a part in the song where the crowd went completely dead silent, and it gave me goosebumps. Celebrating 25 years of being a band also entails that we get to hear at least one song from each album, which we in fact got. With "Bleed No More" being the last song on the set, toward the end they set off shooters with a bunch of white confetti.
The 25 Years of Noise tour in Boston was definitely unforgettable.
