No Acacia, No Love
by MetalBanger on 2010-07-19Sound Academy - TorontoFirst thing I do when I get to a show is go to the merch table. This time I was pumped to check out Acacia Strain merch and buy a t shirt. That was when the unthinkable happened, turns out Acacia got detained at the border. I do not find this out from a fellow fan, I find this out from the lead singer from Cancer Bats, a band who's only song worth head banging to was a cover of Beastie Boys: Sabotage. Then I had to suffer through blessthefall, who are identical to UnderOath, both musically and visually. I knew I stuck around for a reason because after blessthefall was BTBAM and boy did they make up for acacia not being there and blessthefall totally blowing. But no pain no gain and we had to sit through a set from the new found wussies: UnderOath, minus their original drummer. I remember when UnderOath used to make music that didn't all sound the same. This time they played almost all new material and it felt like a never-ending vortex of broken chords, sad attempts at heavy break downs and whiney singing parts without their whiney singing parts dude who used to play the drums. But then As I Lay Dying, after what felt like an hour of waiting between sets, came on and killed it. They opened with 94 hours and immediately got everyone with floor seats off of their feet. Then there was the circle pit which went literally wall-to-wall. Oh yeah and did I mention the WALL OF DEATH, that was also LITERALLY wall-to-wall. So all in all, the 2 out of 3 bands I came to see, put on an awesome show but somehow didn't make up for getting to hear JFC live for a third time. And then there is the new material like BTM FDR that would have erupted the building. All in all, good show, could have been great, but was still good.