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Show Review:: The Unconditional Tour

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The Unconditional Tour made its fifth stop of the tour for a sold out show at the House of Blues Orlando in Lake Buena Vista, FL. Memphis May Fire was the headliner for this tour. They are promoting their upcoming album, Unconditional, which is being released March 25th.

To check out a review of the show (plus photos of each band), check out Caitlyn’s review by clicking “Read More”!

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The show started off with a lot of energy from the opening act, Beartooth.  From the band’s first song, “Set Me on Fire”, until their last song, “I Have a Problem”, fans were crowd surfing and opening up the pit to mosh. It’s rare to see an opening band get this intense of a reaction from the crowd, but Beartooth accomplished it. The highlight song of their performance for me was “Dead”, when bassist, Nick Reed and guitarist, Kam Bradbury came into the crowd and played the first portion of the song as the crowd held them up. The energy kept up even after Reed and Bradbury hopped back on stage to continue playing. The crowd jumped, moshed and crowd surfed until the very end of their set. 

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Hands Like Houses, who hail from Canberra, Australia, were next on the list. The crowd had a much slower reaction to HLH, than openers, Beartooth. This is probably due to the fact that they are the least hardcore of all the bands on this tour. Personally, I enjoyed their performance very much and loved the high energy that they brought. I think they have a great stage presence and are very active, jumping and running around on stage. It wasn’t until about the third song that the crowd started getting more into their set. The crowd surfers began to accumulate and people started to bop their head to the beat. There were definitely fans amongst the crowd though. This was very clear when HLH played their final song, “Introduced Species”, a track off their latest album titled Unimagine. The crowd sang along and was pretty loud during the choruses. I believe HLH ended up leaving the show with more fans than came in. 

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A Skylit Drive came out full throttle. The room instantly became more upbeat shortly into their first song, “Crazy”. Front man Michael Jagmin has amazing energy and really loves interacting with the crowd. At one point he hopped off stage and stood up on the barricade to reach out and sing into the crowd. This had the fans around him beaming with joy. It’s definitely thrilling to have one of your favorite artists that close to you during a show, so I can see why they were so excited. Before their second to last song, Jagmin asked “Who has been a fan of A Skylit Drive since 2008?” The crowd screamed and raised their hands with excitement. He then said “This next song goes out to all of you”, and went into playing “Wires and the Concept of Breathing”, from the band’s first album. The crowd instantly became very excited and was singing every word as loudly as possible. 

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I have never seen The Word Alive in concert before and I only know a few of their songs, but I thought their set was amazingly entertaining despite this. Lead vocalist “Telle” Tyler Smith really knows how to rally the crowd. There were non-stop crowd surfers from the beginning to end of their set. It definitely felt like the most rowdy set of the night from both band and crowd. TWA also treated fans to a new song debut, “Play the Victim”, off their forthcoming album due to be released this spring. 

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This was my seventh time seeing Memphis May Fire and they did not disappoint. They opened up their set with two fan favorites, “The Sinner” and “Alive in the Lights”. This had fans going crazy right from the beginning. They brought along their own set of stage lights which cast a moodier silhouette effect for most of the show. MMF’s set list included two new songs, “No Ordinary Love” and “Sleepless Nights”, off their soon to be released album. About half way through the set, vocalist Matty Mullins said he “wanted to slow things down and dedicate this next song to all the military families” and the band broke into their popular ballad “Miles Away”. Guest vocals on the original track were provided by Kellin Quinn of Sleeping With Sirens, but since he was not there, Jagmin from A Skylit Drive sang along. Their voices worked well together and I think Jagmin did a fantastic job filling in for Quinn’s part. MMF finished their 10 song set and left to go backstage. Instantly the crowd began to chant “Memphis! Memphis!” until the band returned to play two encore songs, “Prove Me Right” and “Legacy”. I think these were two great songs to close with. They were definitely crowd pleasers, and it gave fans one last chance to release any little bit of energy they had left.

Overall, I think this was a great line up for this tour. The energy kept building throughout the night and the crowd was definitely having a wonderful time. All the bands were very active and entertaining on stage and the fans definitely got their money’s worth.

To check out more photos from the show, click here!

Photos & Written By: Caitlyn Willard

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