Tour: Haste the Day Farewell Tour
Date: 1/31/2011
Venue: The Marquis Theater (Denver, CO)
Reviewer: BMer
After 10 years in the business Haste the Day have decided to call it quits. But before they leave us fans they put together one last tour trying to hit all of the cities they hadn’t hit in the past six months. Thankfully Denver was on that list, unfortunately though we would not be getting the full lineup for the tour which featured Mychildren Mybride, A Plea for Purging, and The Chariot in support. The Chariot were finishing off another tour and are joining this tour on the Seattle stop.
This was sort of a home-show for Haste the Day. The original band members all hailed from Indianapolis, therefore that’s technically considered home for HTD and where they will be ending this tour. But the lineup as of now features Stephen Keech on vocals and Dave Krysl on guitar, both played together previously in Denver-based New Day Awakening. The show eventually sold out and throughout the set, fans of New Day Awakening were in full-voice requesting songs from the old band. Stephen talked about that band a little but joked that this current lineup doesn’t know any New Day Awakening songs.
Haste the Day opening the set with “68” off of Dreamer. Stephen was sporting a very short haircut and beard looking somewhat like a mountain man rather than the frontman for a metal band. The band was full of energy and so was the crowd, “68” was nuts and they followed that up with “The Place Where Most Deny” which went over pretty well. Obviously most fans of Haste the Day know there is quite a difference in sound and feel from old Haste the Day (Burning Bridges and When Everything Falls) to the recent releases like Dreamer and Attack of the Wolf King. Most of the older songs really hit hard, the crowd was much more energetic for the older songs which feature straight-forward breakdowns. The first chance they got was the third song in “Blue 42” and sure enough the crowd went crazy.
Throughout the evening Stephen led the band through a few slower tracks, something they’ve been doing over the past few tours playing songs like “An Adult Tree” and “Autumn”, this time they played “White As Snow” and “My Name is Darkness”. While these songs are pretty cool and a nice contrast to the heavier stuff, everyone just kind of stands there and doesn’t know what to do. After they played “My Name is Darkness” they left the stage before coming back out for the encore. They opened the encore with “Chorus of Angels” which went over really well. After that Stephen could sense the restless in the crowd (2 slower songs and a break) and said “don’t worry, we’ll get back to breakdowns soon.” They closed the evening with “When Everything Falls” and it got rowdy.
There were at least 6-7 kids ejected from the venue during Haste the Day’s set, they were thrown out for fighting. I’m not sure if Stephen is giving this speech every night or if he noticed the excessive violence this evening, either way he gave a 5-minute talk about the hardcore scene and how people claim “it’s all about love, but then they go attack someone. There’s no love in that.” From there he talked about the band’s faith in Christ and how kids need to put their faith in the Truth, and not in the hardcore scene. It was great to hear him speak about love and Christ and it was well received by the crowd.
They played through most of the regular songs including “Blue 42”, “Stitches”, and “Mad Men”. They also played some songs that they don’t always play like “American Love” and “Needles”. Three times during the set the crowd voted between songs, the first time we chose “Walk On” over “Fallen” (I voted for Fallen), the second time we chose “Travesty” over my favorite new track “Dogs Like Vultures”, and the last time we chose “Pressure the Hinges” over “Needles”, however Stephen really wanted to play “Needles” so he went with that. “Pressure the Hinges” was probably the only song that everyone expected to hear but didn’t. From their latest album they played “The Place That Most Deny” and “Travesty”, I wish they would have dropped “The Place…” and played “Dogs Like Vultures” instead, but I can’t complain, it was a solid set.
The supporting acts this evening were Mychildren Mybride and A Plea For Purging, A Plea played first with a solid set featuring “Silent Sick America”, “Shiver”, and closed with “Malevolence”. Throughout the set front-man Andy Atkins encouraged the crowd to complete 300 stage-dives. He said that Denver was the rowdiest crowd so far on the tour, but he “measures his fun level in stage-dives.” Later he dogged on Mychildren Mybride, who were playing next, and asked that someone in the crowd skip their set and take him to get a burrito from Illegal Pete’s (in Boulder), if they did “he’d be forever their dude!” Well it happened and they got their burritos. He did let the crowd know that he was joking about Mychildren Mybride and that they are “the best dressed band on the tour.”
Mychildren Mybride played next and had the crowd ramped up. The band is an interesting mix of dudes that look like metal-heads, sounds like metalcore, and talk like a hardcore band, always encouraging the band to two-step, and featuring more gang-vocals than the other bands on tour. The kids were climbing over each other for a shot to sing on the mic. They played most of the songs they’ve been playing for the past year including “Terra Firma”, “Wings of Integrity” and closed with the fan-favorite “Headshot!”. They also added “King of the Hopeless” to the set and it went over great.
It was a solid show, the crowd was very energetic and the venue was packed despite the fact that it was -10 degrees outside. Most of the band-members hung around after the show and talked with the kids, John from A Plea For Purging was rocking some huge sword for some reason, and Haste the Day were selling shirts to commemorate their final tour. The only thing that could have made this evening better would have been Haste the Day playing their cover of “Meet Me Halfway” with a cameo from Fergie.
