True Power | S.L.R. Magazine

After ten and a half weeks on the road the “True Power Tour” made its final stop in Detroit for two back-to-back sold out shows at The Fillmore Detroit. The first leg of the tour included special guests Pierce the Veil, Fit For A King, and Yours Truly. The second leg of the tour included special guests Pierce the Veil, Fit For A King, and Stand Atlantic.

Written by Jessica Trail

The Australian pop-punk band Stand Atlantic started the evening off on the right foot. The four-piece band from Sydney is made up of lead singer/guitarist Bonnie Fraser, David Potter on guitar, Miki Rich on bass, and drummer Jonno Panichi. They started the set with “Hate Me (Sometimes)” from the 2020 Pink Elephant. Singer Bonnie was a very energetic singer who was able to easily draw energy from the crowd and project that energy back into the crowd to make for a fun and lively show. After several songs there was a break for the band to partake in the Australian tradition of drinking from a shoe, known as doing a shoey. It was a great set, and they said they were grateful to join the three other bands for night one and let the crowd known the first night was their last night on the tour.

See full photo gallery for Stand Atlantic here.

Up next was Texas metalcore band, Fit for a King, who ensured that the growing crowd was wide-awake on the Tuesday night. They started their set with “Eyes Roll Back” from their brand-new album The Hell We Create. The crowd was excited to see the new music live. The band’s lineup has changed drastically over the last fifteen years but that hasn’t changed the energy and enthusiasm that they bring to the stage. The band’s current lineup is fronted by Ryan Kirby who brings the growling vocals, Ryan “Tuck” O’Leary who plays bass and provides clean vocals, Daniel Gailey on guitar and provides backup vocals, and Trey Celaya on drums. During the set they took a pause to hype up the crowd for Pierce the Veil and express their excitement to be on the tour with Ryan telling the crowd, “we’re excited to be part of such a huge tour!” They ended the night with the heavy and powerful song “God of Fire” from the 2020 album The Path.

See full photo gallery for Fit For A King here.

Pierce the Veil was up next. They are a pop-punk/metalcore band from San Diego, California. Their front man Vic Fuentes started the band in 2006. Shortly after the band started Tony Perry on lead guitar and Jamie Preciado on bass joined the band. For the tour they were accompanied by Lionel Robinson on drums. This tour was a long run and even included two stops in Las Vegas for the epic “When We Were Young Festival” on October 23^rd and 29^th. (Sidebar: Pierce the Veil’s set was the first one I caught of the day at the Sunday date of the festival, and they were simply amazing to put it mildly!)

They started out the night in Detroit with “May These Noises Startle You in Your Sleep Tonight” from Collide with the Sky and the crowd was loving it from the moment it started. They continued with “Hell Above” also from Collide with the Sky. The third song was “Pass the Nirvana” from their upcoming 2023 release The Jaws of Life. As the song ended, they had to take a long break to ensure someone got the medical attention. They continued the set with “Bulls in the Bronx” once everyone was ok. The crowd was very appreciative of the band’s willingness to stop and check on the crowd when needed. This amped up the crowd to finish out the set. They ended the night with “King for a Day”.

See full photo gallery for Pierce The Veil here.

If there is one thing to know about, I Prevail it is that Michigan and specifically metro Detroit is their hometown show; they made sure to make special call outs to the venues and fans who come out to support them. The five-piece band consists of Eric Vanlerberghe on growl vocals, Brian Burkheiser with clean vocals, Dylan Bowman on rhythm guitar, Steve Menoian on lead guitar, and Gabe Helguera on drums. They also played the “When We Were Young Festival” on October 23^rd and 29^th. Their set was later in the evening for those dates and played their hearts out on the Stripes Stage.

After being on the road from early September until late November they still brough a solid performance to The Fillmore Detroit that in no way indicated they were at the end of 10-and-a-half-week tour. They came out swinging with their newest single, “Fear of Letting Go” from their 2022 release True Power. The next song up was “Body Bag”, a fast-paced song with a lot of harsh vocals that make it worthy of all the headbanging and moshing that had picked up by this point. As they continued, they started playing the opening riffs of “Raining Blood” by Slayer before going into “Judgement Day”. The next two songs, “Breaking Down” and “Paranoid” were notably slower than the rest of the set. These songs were very well received as it shows the band’s great versatility.

Singer Eric took a pause to shout out to Stand Atlantic for their last night on the tour and wanted to “send them out with a fucking bang.” And wished them “much luck and success on their ventures” He also asked the crowd to “make some noise for our good friends in Fit for a King.” Then he continued with “last and certainly not least make some noise for those handsome motherfuckers in Pierce the Veil!” He then welcomed anyone who had never seen I Prevail before to the family.

The band continued to play three more songs from True Power including “Choke”, “Fake”, and “FWYTYK”. Eric then took a pause to address the crowd again saying “Goddamn, it’s good to be home!” and mentioning how they grew up coming to shows at the venue and showing love for the Midwest and especially Michigan. They ended the main portion of the set with “Come and Get It” from the 2016 album, Lifelines. They left the stage and came back out for an encore of heavy hitters and “Gasoline” and ended the evening with “Bow Down which the whole crowd sang and growled along with. It was really a great ending to an amazing evening of a seemingly perfect blend of metalcore and pop-punk music.

See full photo gallery for I Prevail here.

Platinum-certified and twice GRAMMY-nominated Michigan rock powerhouse I PREVAIL — Brian Burkheiser (vocals), Eric Vanlerberghe (vocals), Steve Menoian (guitars/bass), Dylan Bowman (guitars), and Gabe Helguera (drums) — have announced their first North American headline tour in support of their new album TRUE POWER. The much-anticipated album arrives via Fearless Records on August 19 and the band has shared the first single “Body Bag.” Watch the video below.

The band will embark on the “TRUE POWER” tour this fall. Pierce The Veil and Fit For a King will support. Yours Truly will appear on the first leg, while Stand Atlantic will appear on the second leg.

The first leg kicks off in Asbury Park, New Jersey and runs through October 9 in Chicago. The second leg picks up in Las Vegas on October 22 with an appearance at the When We Were Young Festival. It wraps on November 22 in Detroit in the band’s native Michigan.

All dates are below. Tickets go on sale on Friday, June 24 at 10am local time. Get tickets here.

I PREVAIL ON TOUR DATES:

LEG 1:

WITH PIERCE THE VEIL, FIT FOR A KING, + YOURS TRULY:

9/9 — Asbury Park, NJ — Stone Pony Summer Stage
9/10 — Danville, VA — Blue Ridge Rock Fest*#
9/11 — Pittsburgh, PA — UPMC Events Center
9/13 — Indianapolis, IN — Egyptian Room at Old National Centre
9/14 — Oshkosh, WI — Oshkosh Arena#
9/16 — St. Paul, MN — Myth Live
9/17 — Ralston, NE — Liberty First Credit Union Arena#
9/18 — Wichita, KS — Wave#
9/20 — Oklahoma City, OK — The Criterion
9/21 — San Antonio, TX — Tech Port Center#
9/23 — Lubbock, TX — Lonestar Amphitheater#
9/24 — Dallas, TX — South Side Ballroom
9/25 — Houston, TX — White Oak Music Hall#
9/27 — St. Petersburg, FL — Jannus Live
9/28 — Atlanta, GA — Tabernacle
9/29 — Lake Buena Vista, FL — House of Blues
10/1 — Silvers Spring, MD — The Fillmore Silver Spring
10/2 — New York, NY — The Rooftop at Pier 17
10/4 — Montreal, QC — L’Olympia#
10/5 — Toronto, ON — Rebel
10/7 — Ft. Wayne, IN — The Clyde Theatre
10/8 — Grand Rapids, MI — GLC Live at 20 Monroe
10/9 — Chicago, IL — Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom
*I Prevail & Pierce The Veil Only // Festival Date
#Non-Live Nation Date

LEG 2:

WITH PIERCE THE VEIL, FIT FOR A KING, + STAND ATLANTIC:

10/22 — Las Vegas, NV — When We Were Young Fest*
10/23 — Las Vegas, NV — When We Were Young Fest*
10/24 — Los Angeles, CA — The Wiltern
10/26 — San Jose, CA — San Jose Civic
10/28 — Phoenix, AZ — The Van Buren
10/29 — Las Vegas, NV — When We Were Young Fest*
10/31 — Reno, NV — Grand Sierra Resort & Casino
11/1 — Boise, ID — Revolution Concert House and Event Center
11/2 — Salt Lake City, UT — The Complex
11/4 — Denver, CO — Fillmore Auditorium
11/6 — Kansas City, MO — Uptown Theater
11/8 — Milwaukee, WI — The Rave#
11/9 — St. Louis, MO — The Factory
11/11 — Cleveland, OH — Agora Theatre
11/12 — Cincinnati, OH — The Andrew J Brady Music Center
11/13 — Nashville, TN — Marathon Music Works
11/15 — Myrtle Beach, SC — House of Blues
11/18 — Philadelphia, PA — The Fillmore Philadelphia
11/19 — Cambridge, MA — MGM Music Hall at Fenway
11/20 — Buffalo, NY — Buffalo Riverworks#
11/22 — Detroit, MI — The Fillmore
*I Prevail & Pierce The Veil Only // Festival Date
#Non-Live Nation Date

ABOUT I PREVAIL:

I Prevail have established themselves as the forerunners of the genre in the 21st century. TRUE POWER, once again produced by Tyler Smith, features the sort of stadium-sized riffs that will rattle your teeth loose from your gums and unforgettable, supremely catchy melodies that will camp out in your brain for weeks at a time. The band also alternately mixes screamed vocals that sound as though they crawled from the depths of hell with soaring, emotional vocals and heartfelt, intimate lyrics that go so deep, they hit marrow. The end result is an album that resonates with the listener in the most personal way. Rising to an arena level and receiving two Grammy nominations — Best Rock Album for Trauma, and Best Metal Performance for crushing lead single “Bow Down,” I Prevail proved that they were built to last. To date, they’ve racked up more than 1.5 billion streams in the United States, drawn upwards of 334 million YouTube views, and saw their “Hurricane” single top Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart in 2020: officially the top song on U.S. rock radio at the time. A number of their singles have now been certified Gold and Platinum, and they have been praised by press far and wide, including Forbes, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, and NPR.