Unbreakable Tour – Silver Spring, MD – 10.4.16

It’s a rare moment when bands from another country tour North America more than once a year, and Parkway Drive managed to hit a U.S. tour three times this year alone.  This time they brought along We Came As Romans and Counterparts to open up for them here at The Fillmore in Silver Spring, MD.  For this run of the tour, photographer Luis Rosales was there to witness this trio of bands throw down for an amazing night.

Counterparts was up first as they played a fairly short 9 song set list but they made it count as they kept the energy level high consistently with their dirty and raw vocals to everyone jumping around.  With this high energy, the floor resembled those of small hardcore show where people would mosh and throw themselves up to crowd surf.  If it weren’t for the barricade and security, it would have been a very intimate show with stage dives.  Counterparts put on a great performance as they got everyone ready for We Came As Romans to follow up.

We Came As Romans took the stage as they opened up with songs off their previous album “Tracing Back Roots” with “Tracing Back Roots,” “Ghosts,” and “Tear it Down” off their newest self-titled album.  When they started, everyone except Kyle Pavone took stage, which seemed odd at first, but made sense when his part of the opening song came on.  Being primarily a band with screaming, Kyle made sure his parts were dramatic and made fans want to sing along, which they did with every chance they got.  In We Came As Romans fashion, their production was vibrant and exciting and everything caught your eye.  They were able to keep up the energy for the entire 15 songs throughout the night, which they ended with “Hope” after a phenomenal performance from the guys.

As said before, international bands that tour a continent more than once a year is rare.  However, Australian metalcore legends Parkway Drive made their way to Maryland for the third time this year, second time at the Fillmore in Silver Spring.  With this being the second headlining tour, you just know fans were going to fill up the venue fairly quick.  Before starting their set, Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” played over the speakers as fans sang along as if it were being played live. As soon as that ended, lights went off and the intro for “Crushed” started to play and people went crazy as the band started to walk out in the dark.  The response for Parkway Drive coming back was amazing and only lead to crowd surfers from left to right and circle pits that nearly went all the way around the building.  They had a very diverse set list as they played material from “IRE” and going all the way back to “Killing With a Smile.”  Production was absolutely beautiful with their LED bars in the back and plenty of colors to light up the stage.  As the night went on, they let the smoke canons blow and even some confetti during “Dedicated.” Everything about their performance that night was incredible as they always seem to one up their last performance.  There are still plenty of dates on the rest of this tour so you wouldn’t want to miss this at all.