It was a night of “end of tour chaos’ as Nothing More finished off the Spirits Tour in San Diego with special guests Thousand Below and Crown The Empire! Thousand Below got to close out this tour in their hometown! We unfortunately missed most of their set but made it just in time to see the end-of-tour prank from the crew which was saran-wrapping the band completely! The crew wrapped up everything from the drumkit to even wrapping the lead singer, James Deberg, to his mic stand while they were playing their last song “Sinking Me.”
Crown The Empire is the type of band that keeps getting better and better every time I see them! Their energy and stage presence is immaculate and it just feels like one big party. For Cinco De Mayo, lead singer Andy Leo asked for people to crowd surf shots up to them. Soon after, the shots started pouring in and they must’ve gotten at least ten brought up to them! Somebody didn’t really understand the assignment though and literally surfed up their half-gone drink that had trash in it. Throughout their set, people kept throwing random things up on the stage. It was Andy’s birthday a few days ago so somebody threw a bunch of party hats and then at some point, somebody threw Baby Yoda ears.
I definitely have to take back what I’ve been saying about San Diego crowds being lame.
This was probably one of the best SD crowds I’ve been a part of and even Andy said it was the craziest pit he’s seen all tour. During their song “Machines,” Andy yelled out “Who wants to play the last cord!?” Only one hand shot up and guitarist Brandon Hoover came up to the barricade and had that fan play the last cord of the song. Their end-of-tour prank was the boys from Nothing More coming out to literally crown the empire by giving each member a crown. They also brought out a bottle of Crown Royal and everyone took another shot. As they were playing their last song, the crew came back out with a big banner that read “Crayon The Empire.”
I saw just Nothing More perform at this same venue in October opening for In This Moment. I think it’s amazing that they came back less than a year later and are now headlining this venue! The feeling of a Nothing More show is hard to explain unless you were there. They bring such raw emotion and passion to their performances that will have you crying one minute and then back to head-banging the next. Nothing More opened up with “Spirits” and of course, frontman Jonny Hawkins comes out with his iconic look of no shirt, no shoes. He does wear red and black body paint though which is sick and he always has a different design every show!
During “Turn It Up Like (Stand In The Fire),” they bring out this insane contraption called they call The Scorpion Tail. It’s a 400-pound, 14-foot-tall, “instrument” that’s built from metal scraps including salvaged car and motorcycle parts. The Scorpion Tail was constructed and conceptualized by the band's bassist Daniel Oliver and it’s essentially an over-complicated pedal that manipulates both the bass and guitar along with Jonny’s vocals as well.
What I really respect about Nothing More is they’re the type of band that doesn’t do Encores.
At this point it’s so overplayed and as Jonny Hawkins says “It’s fake bullshit.” They do “one last song” and thats it. At the very end of their set, they close out with an all-band “drum line.” Jonny Hawkins actually used to be the drummer of Nothing More so I loved that they still found a way to incorporate this into their shows. To officially close out the show, the band came up and stood on the barricade. Jonny Hawkins handed two Toms to the crowd to hold up for him to drum on. I’ve seen them do this a couple of times and before the show I kept saying I wanted to hold the drum this time. I got a little more than I asked for though and actually ended up being IN the drum! My head was directly under it and it was like wearing a home depot bucket on your head. Watching Jonny hitting the drums from under it was one of the most insane experiences I’ve ever had at a show! I’m not sure if this was part of “end of tour chaos” or it’s just their thing but their setlist was Lord of The Rings themed! They changed the band name to “Nothing Mordor” and changed some of the songs! “Best Times” became “Bilbo Times” and “I’ll Be Okay” turned into “I’ll Be Oakenshield.”
The North American Spirits tour is now concluded but Nothing More will be hitting Sonic Temple Fest in Ohio before heading to Europe in June!
Photos by Heather Vandemark
Written by Kaiya Vandemark
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