Wage War and Nothing More brought their co-headlining tour with support from Veil of Maya and Sleep Theory to Riverside Municipal Auditorium on April 24th! This is one of my favorite venues! We are San Diego-based, so it is a drive but totally worth it. There’s a whole GA open floor for moshing and crowd surfing, but there are also theater seats in the back and a seated balcony if you want to chill.
With Riverside traffic, we made it just in time to catch Sleep Theory opening the show. We always strive to be there for the opening bands, not only to show support, but you’ll probably discover a new band that you’ll end up having on repeat. I did look them up on Spotify to be a little more familiar with their music, so I knew I didn’t want to miss them. Sleep Theory is rock, metal, R&B all in one band. Their set started with their latest single, “Fallout”, and closed with “Numb”. Direct support of the night came from Chicago’s own Veil of Maya. Lead Singer, Lukas Magyar really showed off his versatility with a mix of clean and dirty vocals. Their setlist included songs mostly off their latest release, [M]other, mixed with some others off earlier albums.
I love co-headliners because you never know which band is closing out the night.
We see the drums and the banner go up and see Nothing More will be going on first. Frontman Jonny Hawkins comes out with his iconic look of no shirt, no shoes. He does wear body paint and he creates a different design every show! I’m used to seeing red and black paint, but tonight was a fun twist with blue and black. Nothing More brings such a range of emotions and passion to their performances that you’ll be tearing up with “Fade In/Fade Out” (written about guitarist Mark Vollelunga’s father) and “Jenny” (written about Jonny’s sister) and then back to head-banging with “ Let ‘Em Burn” and “Go to War”. I love that Nothing More doesn’t do an encore. They do “one last song” and that's it. I ran up to the balcony, as I’ve seen this a few times and always looked for a different POV for fun. At the very end of their set, they close out with an all-band “drumline.” Jonny Hawkins used to be the drummer of Nothing More, so we love that they incorporate this into their shows. To officially close out the show, the band jumped off of the stage and stood on the barricade. Jonny Hawkins handed two Toms to the crowd to hold up for him to drum on. He pushes down on each one to make sure the crowd has a good grip on them. The last time Nothing More came to San Diego, Kaiya ended up with her head in the drum, so I knew Kaiya would somehow be up there holding a drum or having her head in the drum once again.
Wage War showed up on my radar in 2022 when we saw them at 98Rock Fest and Earthday Birthday in Florida.
They are so amazing live and I’ve become a big fan, so much, so that I will see them three times in three weeks, in three different states. (stay tuned for those stories from Sick New World and Welcome to Rockville). On this night, they opened up with “Stitch”, my second favorite song. Nothing like ‘Pick It Up!” to get the energy up. They played their two new singles “NAIL5'' and “MAGNETIC” from their upcoming album “ STIGMA” due to be released on June 21. One of the things I love about Wage War is Briton Bond with powerful dirty vocals and Cody Quistad just chilling on rhythm guitar, and then you realize he is the one singing the beautiful clean vocals. Being a photographer, I usually have my equipment on me, so I can’t be in the mix of things. I stay to the side and observe the action. It’s fun to watch the people that go in and out of the pit. One guy, let’s say a Gen X age, went in for a minute and came out with one shoe. Looking over into the pit, I could see the shoe above someone’s head going around and around. I love my metal people. Before closing out the show, Briton gave a birthday shout-out to Shelby, the sixth member of Wage War, their sound engineer. They closed out with “Manic”. Can you even read that without screaming “Manic!”? Me neither!
There are still more dates left on this tour, and they are hitting quite a few festivals this summer.
Remaining Dates:
5/8 Grand Rapids, MI – 2 Monroe Live
5/10 Bethlehem, PA – Wind Creek Event Center
5/11 Columbus, OH – Kemba Live (No Wage War)
5/12 Daytona, FL - Welcome to Rockville (Wage War Only)
5/12 Pittsburgh, PA – Stage AE (No Wage War)
5/14 Norfolk, VA – The NorVA
5/15 Raleigh, NC – The Ritz
5/17 Indianapolis, IN – The Egyptian Room
5/18 Bloomington, IL – The Castle Theatre (No Wage War)
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