Wage War - Live In Philadelphia!

Photos and Review By Leigha Kristina

It was a lively Wednesday at the Fillmore on May 17th! Wage War nearly tore the roof off of the building when they brought the Manic Tour to Philly. Supported by nothing, nowhere and Spite, fans were treated to an unforgettable evening of brain melting metal. The first act of the night was SoCal Deathcore band Spite. They had some loyal fans in the crowd who were singing every word from the start of their set until the very end. Spite opened with Lord Of The Upside Down, the opening track to last year's release, Dedication To Flesh. Vocalist Darius Tehrani wowed fans with mind bending screams and remarkable neck strength, whipping his full head of hair around and around. Cloaked in strobes and moody red lighting, the band gave an incredible performance that had the whole room up off their feet. Since there were only three bands performing, Spite put on an eight song set.

Up next on the stacked bill was nothing, nowhere. The singer-songwriter/rapper got the energy going with an intro to his track THIRST4VIOLENCE. Real name Joseph Mulherin, nothing, nowhere’s set was stacked with a blend of emo rap and hardcore punk energy that gave an exciting thrill to the show, a break between deathcore and metalcore. Playing tracks from both VOID ETERNAL and ruiner, nothing, nowhere tallied up twelve songs for the night. The crowd even got a surprise when Chamber’s vocalist, Jacob Lilly, came out to perform TRAG3DY.

After a brief break to change over the stage, the lights in the room became a low red glow. The band’s intro song, Maniac by Michael Sembello, had concertgoers bouncing. There were even a handful of people in the room attempting to create Flashdance-like moves in the gap where the pit would soon form. Wage War strutted out onto

the stage, taking their places before ripping into their opening song, Relapse. The crowd energy went from zero to sixty in mere seconds, and kept it up all night long. Each member of the band gave it their all as they progressed from song to song. The group played 19 songs in total, including songs that showed off both lead vocalist, Briton Bond, and rhythm guitar/clean vocalist Cody Quistad’s monumental vocals. With heavy tracks like High Horse and Stitch, and more melodic deep cuts like Gravity, and a stripped down version of Johnny Cash. The night ended with one final song, the namesake for the tour, Manic. When the time came for the encore, the crowd banded together to shout, “MANIC! MANIC! MANIC!” until the band came back onto the stage. Everyone in the room exhausted their last bits of energy to bring the night to a beautiful close with Wage War.