Silverstein | Chicago, IL
Silverstein, who was celebrating twenty-five years as a band, embarked on a three month long “25 Years of Noise” tour. As this tour reached the end of the United States leg, they made a stop in Chicago, IL at Concord Music Hall on February 11th for a sold-out Tuesday night. Starting off the night in Chicago was UK based band Split Chain, immediately hyping up the crowd, starting off with “Chalk” and closing out with “Extract.”
Following them was Arm's Length - a pop-punk powerhouse from Canada took the stage playing “In Loving Memory.” Vocalist exclaims that ‘We are going to play a brand new song! It just released at midnight last night! It’s called "Funny Face.”’
Thursday took the stage and wasted no time jumping straight in, opening their set with “The Other Side Of The Crash/Over And Out (Out Of Control)” then going right into “Cross Out The Eyes”. Midway through, Geoff Rickley told a story - “Us and Silverstein used to be on a little Chicago label known as Victory Records,” the crowd started booing, ‘See the booing tells me that you all remember who Victory records are. We have been working really hard and have been putting out some new music on our own. We want to get back to who we were in 1998. So Here is a new song Called “Taking Inventory Of A Frozen Lake.”’ Following up to the newest song, Geoff said, “Here is one we haven’t played in Chicago in 15 years, it’s called The Love Song Writer.” They left the stage after playing fan favorites “Understanding In A Car Crash” followed by “War All The Time.”
Finally the stage went dark, and on the backdrop, a nostalgic video of old tour and studio footage started with narration by Shane Told telling the story, the history of Silverstein. The band took the stage to open with a single released this year “Skin And Bones” followed by “Confession.” As they continued on, the songs kept getting older and older. Shane asked, “Have you all noticed that we started with the newest song and the songs have been getting older? We wanted to do this right! So here we are in 2009” and they then played “Vices” from A Shipwreck in the Sand.
The band walked off stage and Shane came back out with an acoustic guitar to play “The End.” Towards the end of the song, the full band returned to finish out the song. We have now reached 2005 as they played “Your Sword Versus My Dagger,” “Call It Karma,” and then finally “Smile In Your Sleep” - all off Discovering The Waterfront. They walked off stage and the room went dark.
“ONE MORE SONG… ONE MORE SONG…” Shane came back with an acoustic to play “My Heroine.” Midway through, he said, “St. Louis was louder than you… The song isn’t over though.” The crowd then became so loud that you could no longer hear Shane. The band returned, and the robot showed up on the backdrop, “you didn't think we would forget about the robot!” They finished the night with a confetti pop and “Smashed Into Pieces” and “Bleed No More.” The night came to an end where it all began with the album When Broken Is Easily Fixed.
