Bad Omens and friends brought beauty and brutality to T-Mobile

1 hour ago

Jason Colvin,

Bad Omens. // photo by Jason Colvin

Bad Omens
with Beartooth and President
T-Mobile Center
Thursday, February 26

On Thursday, February 26, Bad Omens brought their Do You Feel Love tour to the T-Mobile Center. Along with them, supporting acts President and Beartooth gave fans a show of beauty and brutality that lit up the arena with an array of lights, lasers, and fire. As well as a Presidential podium?

The show opened with the anonymous English alternative metal band President taking the stage for Kansas City’s Inaugural Address. The vocalist took to his podium, face disguised behind a mask that invokes feelings of mystery and terror. Joining him on stage was his unknown cabinet of black-masked band members: Heist (guitar), Protest (bass), and Vice on drums. The set included all the songs from lasy year’s debut EP, King of Terrors, as well as the newly released single, “Angel Wings.”

They gave the crowd a dialed-in, high-energy performance that blended theatrics with strong musical composition. Mixing melodic music and vocals with heavy riffs and throat-ripping screams, they showed a confidence that proved they may be a new band on the metal scene, but whoever they are, this is not their first run in music. The impressive range of pop-rock-metal dropped in the set showed the audience they are just starting to build something very monumental that is just over the horizon for the band.

Beartooth. // photo by Jason Colvin

After a quick stage turnover that saw it grow in depth, it was time for Beartooth to deliver. With Beartooth in all white caps behind them and two sets of three LCD screens lined with lights on each side of the drum set, the band came out to excited screaming fans. Since being formed in 2012 by frontman Caleb Shomo, the band has been bringing their hardcore punk metal sound to the world stage with emotional ferocity.

This night, they continued that tradition with a set that delivered electrifying, high-energy metalcore with Shomo’s deeply emotional, personal lyrics. The ten-song set list included five tracks from the band’s latest full-length album, The Surface, as well as two tracks each from Disease and Disgusting. They also played their newest single released this year, “Free.”

Beartooth. // photo by Jason Colvin

Opening the show with “Might Love Myself,” Shomo sang to the fans through anthemic chorus the importance of choosing self-love, mental health recovery, and personal growth. The next song saw the band go back in time to the heavy riff punk-metal song “In Between,” which found Shomo blending his melodic voice with more screams of pain in dealing with the mental strain of dealing with depression. He reminded us all that while we may feel isolated in our mental struggles, we are indeed not alone.

Through the remainder of the band’s set, they continued to grind out these themes and sounds as the fans sang along, moshed, and crowd surfed, driven by the high energy Beartooth flawlessly delivered. When the music ended and the band left the stage, Shomo was left standing front and center as he brought his night full circle with an emotional message of the importance of knowing who we are, being okay with who that person is, and for all of us to remember to love ourselves every day. Was that sweat from being in the most pit or some tears running down my cheek?

Then it was time for headliners Bad Omens to ask us “do we feel the love” as the lights went down one last time for the night as Tape 1 began to roll. When the tape shut off, the stage began to fill with fog as white lights lit up vocalist Noah Sebastian, leading off the set with one of the band’s new singles, the haunting, electronic-infused song “Specter.”

Joining Noah on stage were bandmates Nicholas Ruffilo (bass), Joakim “Jolly” Karlsson (guitar), and drummer Nick Folio. For the second song of the night, the band quickly upped the tempo, going hard with the track “Glass Houses” from their 2016 self-titled debut. The heavy metal riffs and screams of the song were given fiery power as flames shot from the front of the stage. The crowd’s energy ignited as a mosh pit quickly formed, and crowd surfers went up and drifted toward the stage.

This energy never for a moment let up through the band’s eighteen-song set list. Moshing, crowd surfing, jumping up and down through the heavy songs to hands waving and fans singing along with the more melodic songs, every person in that arena was held captive by the band’s performance. During the song “Just Pretend,” Sebastian told the crowd to lift up their phone flashlights or lighters (if that is still your thing), and as I looked around the arena from the floor, I got chills as the dark was brightly lit by the fans as we all sang along to the emotionally charged chorus of the song.

The show was a massive production, including uses of pyrotechnics, laser show effects, and multi-layered LCD screens. From the large screen behind the band on stage to the smaller screens moving up from them into the rafters of the T-Mobile Center, they were used with hypnotic and powerful effect.

Bad Omens. // photo by Jason Colvin

The song set list was broken up into sections by the use of five tape recordings using cryptic, cinematic messages that blend into the band’s themes of trauma, digital-age disconnect, and loss. When what seemed would be the last song of the night, “Impose,” was wrapping up, lasers beamed through the confetti raining down among the fans, providing a visually stunning finale. However, Bad Omens was not quite finished with us yet. They came out for one last song, capping the night off with a pyro-intensive encore of “Dethrone. As they delivered us the heaviest song of the night, the fans gave them their full energy in the largest mosh pit of the night.

All photos by Jason Colvin

Bad Omens

Bad Omens setlist
Tape 1
Specter
Glass Houses
THE DRAIN
THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND
Tape 2
Dying to Love
CONCRETE JUNGLE
Nowhere to Go
Limits
Tape 3
ARTIFICIAL SUICIDE
V.A.N
Left For Good
ANYTHING > HUMAN (with JT Cavey)
What Do You Want From Me?
Tape 4
What It Cost
Like a Villain
Just Pretend
Tape 5
Impose
—
Dethrone