Ice Nine Kills Concert Review with From Ashes To New, Palisades, Afterlife, and Hawk
The City Center
April 6, 2019
Champaign, Illinois

 

Champaign, Illinois is no stranger to great music. The city where greats like REO Speedwagon and Alison Krauss The City Center is a new venue to add to the robust nightlife in the town. The venue is one of the cleanest venues I have been in. It is definitely a diamond in the rough. Champaign-Urbana is a city plagued with parking issues and the City Center is no exception. They give a detailed parking map on their Facebook posts and website.

The lineup for March into Madness tour is a powerhouse of bands that have been touring for a number of years and perfecting their music. These bands are great live bands. Ice Nine Kills, From Ashes To New and Palisades are getting frequent air play from SiriusXM Octane channel.

HAWK band is from Lancaster, Pennsyvlania and is the band that was formerly known as This or The Apocalypse.  Ricky Armellino explains the rebranding of the band on their website here: HAWK.  The band performed well but being so new, their songs were not familiar to the crowd yet.

Afterlife is a young band from West Palm Beach, Florida. They have gained quite a following and their music is a lesson about abuse, wrongs, reprisal and is right in line for fans of From Ashes To New. They asked the crowd to join them by lighting up the place when they performed their song, “Broken Home” about domestic abuse.

Palisades comes from New Jersey.  Erase The Pain is their latest album and the latest single off that album.  The song lyrics shows us intricacy in their songwriting.  This album displays their maturity as a band.  They chose the figure of a ouroboris to represent their transformation.  Palisades is a band that always pleases the crowd.  Vocalist, Lou Miceli, greeted fans at the show.  

 

Check out where to see Palisades here: Palisades website

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Ashes To New is from Lancaster, Pennsylvania is touring in support of their album, The Future, that has had great success. This album was the first after adding new members vocalist, Danny Case and drummer, Mat Madiro (Trivium). Their single “Crazy” has lyrics that everyone can relate to and has a catchy hook.

“I give, you take, you always push me away
I love, you hate, it’s always, always the same
You’re always taking, taking, never giving back
To me, it’s in the past but tell me how you live with that
You always love to hate with every single breath
But since the disconnect, you see the life you wish you had
Yeah, you see the life you wish you had
Am I going crazy?
Yeah, I think you made me
‘Cause I hate the way that you make me feel
Am I going crazy?”

I predict From Ashes To New will continue to prosper with their relatable lyrics and catchy melodies.

For more on FATN, go to their website: From Ashes To New

Ice Nine Kills is a horror metalcore band from Boston, Massachusetts. Their latest release, The Silver Scream was released on October 5, 2018 and was their highest debuted album. Each of the thirteen songs is based on a classic horror movie.  Their biggest hit off of the album, “A Grave Mistake” has been having great success and is based on the movie, The Crow. The video portrays the vocalist, Spencer Charnas, as the vengeful hero. Watch the cool video for “A Grave Mistake” here:

The movie The Crow starred Brandon Lee, son of actor and martial artist, Bruce Lee. Brandon Lee died during the filming of the movie when a prop gun accidentally fired a dummy round. The urban legend is that it was due to the curse that was placed on Bruce Lee and his family.  No curses for Ice Nine Kills that we know of.  For their live show, each band member dressed up as a character from one of the movies.  Vocalist, Spencer Charnas, changed into different costumes during their set with a variety of all your favorite horror movies.  The fans were ready to scream all weekend with INK.  

 

Check out Ice Nine Kills Website: Ice Nine Kills