Pop Evil came to San Diego for the first time in 14 years on April 12th! The Skeletons Tour is in support of Pop Evil’s recently released seventh album, of the same name, and includes supporting acts Avoid and The Word Alive.
Avoid kicked off the night! Lead Singer Benny Scholl came out with a Padres jersey but of course still repping their hometown player from Seattle, Blake Snell. They’re not kidding when they say Avoid Kicks Ass. They all had amazing stage presence and Bennys energy was so infectious. There was even a pretty impressive mosh pit for a San Diego crowd.
The Word Alive is one of those bands that I’ve been dying to see for awhile now but just never had the opportunity until this night. Lead Singer Tyler “Telle” Smith grew up in Ohio and when he moved out west, he chose Oceanside to reside so this was the closest he got to play a hometown show. They opened up their set with “2012,” a song off of their first album! Benny came back out and joined them for the breakdown.
After a couple of songs, Telle pointed out that he was drinking whiskey… out of a soup cup.
He kept making random jokes about it throughout the set and after one of the songs, they left the lights on, and he was like “oh you guys just love watching me drink out of this don’t you. I feel so exposed!”
They did a sing along to their latest song “New Reality” which will be included on their upcoming album! The release date for this album is still unannounced but this will be their first release in over three years! There was a girl in the audience, she happened to be standing right next to me, who said this was her last show before leaving for deployment. Telle dedicated the next song, “Life Cycles,” to her. They also played a cover of Kanye West’s “Heartless.” I never thought I’d hear a breakdown during a Kanye song, but I was all for it!
It’s funny to me how in house music changes from band to band. Before The Word Alive came out, they were playing a lot of Metalcore and then before Pop Evil came out, it completely changed and went to pop. They were playing all my guilty pleasure songs that I can’t say I listen to as a Metalhead.
Pop Evil has one of the coolest stage set ups! They have a huge raised platform that elevates the drumming queen, Hayley Cramer. They also have ramps on both sides of the platform that allow the members to go up and down. For a band that is constantly moving around, It brought a really dynamic aspect to their performance. Pop Evil came out and kicked off their set with album opener “Paranoid (Crash & Burn),” and then Benny came out on the stage once again and joined them for “Dead Reckoning.”
Pop Evil wrote their latest album, Skeletons, in hopes of helping people by mainly focusing on the struggles of mental health and learning to push through and overcome.
Lead singer Leigh Kakaty gave a little speech in between songs saying, if music could help you escape whatever for just 5 mins, 40 mins, or even a couple hours. With so much in the world dividing us, it's good to remember what we all have in common. 1. We’re all fans of rock/metal 2. We all bleed the same color. 3. We all have skeletons. They then went on to play their title track, “Skeletons.”
Out of the now four times I’ve seen Pop Evil, this was the first time I’ve seen them on a headlining tour instead of a festival. Their song “Eye of the Storm” will always take me back to the feeling of being at a festival and brings me that sense of nostalgia. What I love about seeing Pop Evil live is they have amazing band chemistry and you can really feel that bond just being in the crowd. They’re up there just having a good time and that energy carries over to the fans. We felt like we were a part of the show and not just watching it.
During one of the songs, guitarist Davey Grahs was throwing out picks left and right until pretty much everyone in front of him had a pick. After a while he walked up to the platform and put a pick on one of Hayleys symbols, hoping that it would fly into the crowd. She hit it and it just fell straight to the ground. Then the bass player picked it up and started playing with it. They had a four-song encore that included a fully acapella version of “100 in a 55,” which was beautiful, before closing out with their hit “Breath Again.”
There's only a few more dates on the Skeletons tour so be sure to catch this tour if you can! Hopefully San Diego doesn’t have to wait another 14 years before it sees Pop Evil again!
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