Scranton, PA - 7/29/2016 with Breaking Benjamin & Disturbed

Tell the world about your concert experiences.
Post Reply
abw1987
Blood Machines
Posts: 8967
Joined: Thu Jun 14, 2012 9:27 am
Location: Flipadelphia
Contact:

Scranton, PA - 7/29/2016 with Breaking Benjamin & Disturbed

Post by abw1987 »

I got to see Alter Bridge on Friday night at the Pavilion at Montage Mountain in Scranton, PA. It's supposed to be a 2hr drive; I left home at 4:30 and barely made it to AB's set at 7:30 due to traffic. I actually ended up missing the first song (CTL) but luckily I could at least hear it as I was walking down the hill towards the amphitheater.

We had pit tickets so we immediately made our way to the front. Mark definitely saw us walking in and shot us a grin, as I was probably one of the only people there in an AB shirt and I'm sure he will forever remember my wife as the "sausage lady" (for those who get the reference).

This has to be one of the funniest AB shows I've been to. Aside from a few folks in the pit, basically no one cared about Alter Bridge. The guys seemed to have accepted that fact and were just up there having a good time. They were all goofing around with each other, smiling all over the place, Mark was squealing his guitar to an almost gratuitous level, and the whole thing just felt very casual. It all seems very low-pressure for them -- they only have to play 35 minutes, they are playing their staple songs which they are very comfortable playing now, I'm sure they're getting a decent-enough paycheck given the size of the tour, and it's a chance for them to win over 10k+ American fans every night.

They ended up playing 7 songs as opposed to the usual six:
  1. Come to Life
  2. Farther Than the Sun
  3. Ties That Bind
  4. Isolation
  5. Metalingus
  6. Addicted to Pain
  7. Rise Today
Obviously they dropped the longer songs like "Blackbird" and "Cry of Achilles" so they could play 7 instead of 6. I think that's a good thing because these crowds don't have the patience or attention span for tracks like that. Everyone's been tailgating all day, and they're just there to party and rock out. AB had might as well try to win them over with the simpler, more rockin' songs. I didn't realize how many people would be there, so this tour is a great exposure opportunity for the guys.

Anyway the band sounded great of course. Myles's voice is in top form (and I totally forgot to listen out for any strange pronunciation). The only potential mistake I noticed is that they played "Rise Today" really slow. You could tell Mark was struggling to "keep down" with the slow tempo. I'll have to check videos of previous shows to see if they've been doing this all tour, but I suspect Flip might've set it click track at the wrong tempo or something.

All-in-all it was a great show. I felt like it was totally worth driving 5+hrs round trip to see them, even if only for 35 minutes, just to be there and support them. I felt like I was playing that "stronger than all" YouTube challenge because I had my arm in the air the entire time. I was wearing my Blackbird shirt, and I know for sure both Mark and Myles noticed me and my wife in the pit supporting them.

After that we just got some beer and casually enjoyed the rest of the concert. Breaking Benjamin were really good. Ben struggled a little bit vocally, but his band is really tight and they played basically all of their biggest hits. Ben is a really strong frontman -- very charismatic and able to run the crowd.

Disturbed were great too. David has a totally different take on showmanship, the way he just slowly walks around stage singing. His vocals actually surpassed my expectations because he's sometimes slightly off-pitch on their albums, but live he sounded great. Their stage setup was cool -- really minimalistic (like where are their amps?) and lots of pyro. They also do this really cool thing during "The Light" where whenever he sings those words, the audience turns on their cellphone flashlights. (Check out my video here, taken from the edge of the audience as we were trying to beat the traffic at the end of the show.)

And there's my unintentionally long write-up. Here are some pics:

The whole band:
Image
Cropped for your convenience:
Image
Stella!
Image
Cropped again for your convenience:
Image
Huge crowd - apparently it was sold out:
Image
Breaking Benjamin:
Image
The crowd after sunset:
Image
Disturbed:
Image
Video of the aforementioned crowd participation during "The Light" - pretty neat:
Image

User avatar
Timotheus
Little Belgian Waffle
Posts: 16842
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2012 3:52 am
Location: Belgium シ
Contact:

Re: Scranton, PA - 7/29/2016 with Breaking Benjamin & Distur

Post by Timotheus »

Nice! Sucks that you kinda missed the first song. It's such a short set already. But yay for having a good time!

I love that second picture (the cropped one)!
Image
anguyen92 wrote:
Oh well. Deal with it.

abw1987
Blood Machines
Posts: 8967
Joined: Thu Jun 14, 2012 9:27 am
Location: Flipadelphia
Contact:

Re: Scranton, PA - 7/29/2016 with Breaking Benjamin & Distur

Post by abw1987 »

Yeah, we were seriously worried we were going to miss the entire set. I used Waze for directions, which is usually highly reliable, but I'm thinking it might do better in cities where there are a lot of Waze users. It took us on some weird routes, and we only got to Scranton by like 7:15. There ended up being a huge line for parking, and when we finally parked we had no idea where the actual amphitheater was. That place is honestly a mess. Anyway I'm glad we made it in the end!

Felt kind of boss walking directly down into the pit, then Mark looks over like "my people have arrived."
Image

User avatar
Timotheus
Little Belgian Waffle
Posts: 16842
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2012 3:52 am
Location: Belgium シ
Contact:

Re: Scranton, PA - 7/29/2016 with Breaking Benjamin & Distur

Post by Timotheus »

Honestly, based on what I know of Scranton based on The Office I'm surprised there even is an amphitheater, lol.
abw1987 wrote:Felt kind of boss walking directly down into the pit, then Mark looks over like "my people have arrived."
"Move aside, plebs. V.I.P. coming through."
Image
anguyen92 wrote:
Oh well. Deal with it.

abw1987
Blood Machines
Posts: 8967
Joined: Thu Jun 14, 2012 9:27 am
Location: Flipadelphia
Contact:

Re: Scranton, PA - 7/29/2016 with Breaking Benjamin & Distur

Post by abw1987 »

Haha. Well Wilkes-Barre/Scranton are the only somewhat metropolitan towns in the area, and people are willing to drive much longer distances in rural areas. My wife grew up in central PA and would routinely drive 1hr just to get to a decent mall. So an amphitheater in Scranton will draw people from quite a wide area.
Image

User avatar
One Drew Remains
Slip To The Void
Posts: 4521
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2012 7:40 pm
Location: Mizzou

Re: Scranton, PA - 7/29/2016 with Breaking Benjamin & Distur

Post by One Drew Remains »

I know what you mean about Disturbed. When I saw them several years ago, I was mainly there for Sevendust. But Draiman really won me over with his performance.
Altered:
9/17/11, 5/02/14, 10/16/14, 10/08/16, 1/28/17, 5/13/17, 12/08/17, 10/14/19, 8/17/23

abw1987
Blood Machines
Posts: 8967
Joined: Thu Jun 14, 2012 9:27 am
Location: Flipadelphia
Contact:

Re: Scranton, PA - 7/29/2016 with Breaking Benjamin & Distur

Post by abw1987 »

My wife likened him to Lord Varys from Game of Thrones, the way he calmly walks around on stage wearing that cloak thing. :lol
Image

User avatar
agny
On The Rail
Posts: 1981
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2012 10:36 pm
Location: northeast US

Re: Scranton, PA - 7/29/2016 with Breaking Benjamin & Distur

Post by agny »

Great pictures. Couldn't make it myself but glad to hear they're having fun.

I saw Draiman when he was with his other band at MMRBQ years ago. Struck me as a natural born cult leader. :lol
Alterations: Dec 2010, May 2011, August 2011x2, Sept 2011, Oct 2014x2

Post Reply