Upon hearing that Skillet & Decyfer Down would be playing only 15 minutes or so from where I live, I figured I would check it out and write up a live review. I had never seen either of the bands live, and I like to try to catch most bands I listen live at least once if possible. I had been planning on hitting up the Silver Bullet Tour that was playing a few hours away but I got the dates mixed up and they both fell on the same night. Since I made some commitments to review it, I decided to head to Skillet with some friends. Upon arriving at the church, I was surprised to see quite a large turnout, but was happy that it wasn’t a flop. However, I did have one apprehension…I personally feel odd going to hard rock concerts at churches, and probably always will, but I tried to set that aside and focus on the band’s performances.
Decyfer Down took the stage pretty soon after I arrived and upon the first song I knew they would be tight. Actually, it was like listening to their cd over a loud speaker system. This band really needs to get out and play some club tours. They would do extremely well with many of the hard rock radio bands out there now.
The band played a solid set consisting of a good portion of their debut album “End Of Grey” and only spoke for brief moments in between tracks. Some of the songs played were “Break Free”, “Fight Like This”, “I’ll Breathe For You”, “Walking Dead”, “Life Again”, and “Burn Back The Sun”. The crowd really got into it and moved along with the songs. I really felt like they’d really do well in a club setting with band’s like Breaking Benjamin, Stone Sour, etc. If these guys are ever around this area again be sure I will be in attendance.
After some gear removal and setup Skillet took the stage. Obviously the majority of the crowd was here for them and were quite excited. I was interested to see if they’d be able to pull off their electronic-influenced, hard rock live.
The band played started off quite solidly and ripped through a bunch of songs. A few mellow ones followed and then John spoke for awhile about where we as Christians are failing the world. It wasn’t an attack because it was clear that the intention was to encourage the audience to go out there and live differently. The band then wrapped up their set, which then of course was followed by a planned encore.
The one thing that stood out as a positive for the band was that the lead guitarist added a lot of guitarwork to the older tracks and definitely that is utilized in the new album as well.
However, the band did over-promote their new album. They had to have mentioned it/talked about it at 5 separate times and it was like watching an infomercial. Also, I felt they played well, but far too long. It would have been nice if they had cut off 3-4 songs short and I would have enjoyed the concert much more and more of the crowd would have stuck around. Thankfully, even though it was a church show and they had to play the “crowd favorites” off older albums, they mainly stuck to “Collide” and “Comatose” (releasing Oct. 3) which are definitely their best albums.
Overall it was a good show but definitely could have been better. I will definitely be seeing Decyfer Down again if possible and for Skillet, it’ll be left up to my mood and the location I suppose. Hopefully some of the filler tracks and some older ones will be left behind for the much stronger new albums.
Here’s the songs I remember them playing, but it’s only a partial list of the set.
“Best Kept Secret”, “Alien Youth”, “You Are My Hope”, “Eating Me Away”, “Kill Me, Heal Me”, “Collide”, “Forsaken”, “Savior”, “My Obsession”, “Better Than Drugs”, “Whispers In The Dark”, “Rebirthing”