Photos and Review by Jim LaValley
Galleries: Motionless In White, Beartooth, Stick To Your Guns
The Worcester Palladium delivered another great sold out show on a cold winter night in New England!! You could tell the fans were there to have fun and rock out by the energy and anticipation even before any band hit the stage. The Disease and Disguised Tour had a killer bill featuring Beartooth & Motionless in White co-headlining with Stick to your Guns and Limbs opening for them. Beartooth is supporting their 2018 album “Diseased” and Motionless in White (MIW) is supporting their 2019 album “Disguised”, which makes a perfect blend of music for fans.
Limbs, an up-and-coming band from Tampa, FL, opened the show to get the crowd going as the fans piled in to fill-up the Worcester Palladium.
The pit was primed and filled-in by the time “Stick to your Guns” came out. They were energetic with their jumping, which was a treat for us concert photographers. Their music sounded great with the current lineup of Jesse Barnett (vocals), Andrew Rose (bass guitar), George Schmitz (drums), Chris Rawson (rhythm guitar), and Josh James (lead guitars).
Beartooth was up next and they brought the energy!! The opened with “The Lines” and then went into their huge hit “Hated”. The fans started to erupt (as they always do in Worcester) as Beartooth progressed with the show. Their current lineup is Caleb Shomo (vocals, guitars), Kamron Bradbury (rhythm guitar), Oshie Bichar (bass guitar), Connor Denis (drums), and Zach Huston (lead guitar).
It was pretty awesome to see/hear two walls of Orange Amps helping to kick out over 120 decibels!! Caleb’s vocals and stage presence were stellar as his lyrics connected with the fans in a way that is so noticeable. As I looked around the palladium, I noticed fans were singing to each other while getting drinks and watching the show. You could tell they totally loved it. It’s no surprise why this tour sold out 12 previous shows before selling out the biggest show of the tour to-date in Worcester. Beartooth’s performance was great and they sounded tight and thunderous, Oshie’s background vocals were right on.
I’ve missed MIW over the years but always liked their sound. I felt fortunate to finally catch them live and was not disappointed, they blew my mind!! The new “Disguise” album brings you on a journey with the band that is fun to watch and listen to. The stage props and lighting worked perfect to help set the mood and ambiance to accent the music and strengthen the show. Chris Motionless’ microphone stand was super cool, I’ve never seen anything like it. It was a skeleton made with precision gears that brought it to life when Chris whipped it around. The stage had an industrial vibe with smoking barrels and large ventilation fans.
The current lineup is Chris “Motionless” Cerulli (vocals), Ryan Sitkowski (lead guitar), Ricky “Horror” Olson (rhythm guitar), Vinny Mauro (drums), and newest member Justin Morrow (bass guitar). The opened up with “Disguise” from their new album then went on with “Necessary Evil”, which at that point the crowd was in full pit and crowd-surfing mode. MIW have so many killer tunes that each song was noticeable throughout their entire set. Here is a sample of the show with the crowd totally into their hit song “Voices”.
A cool part of the show is when Chris Motionless noticed a young girl in the front row and invited her onstage to have full reign of the stage during their new song “Legacy”, this was the first time they ever played “Legacy” live. Although I like MIW music while listening on SiriusXM Octane, seeing them live was a totally different experience that I highly recommend. Kudos guys!!
This tour will be wrapping up as I write this but both bands are continuing with different tours that will take them around the world.