Live: Beartooth and Trivium in Indianapolis
June 1, 2023
Trivium and Beartooth turned Indy’s Egyptian Room into a European festival when they rolled through with Archetypes Collide.
From the start of the show, the crowd was loud, invested and ready to rock. Archetypes Collide, who just released their self-titled debut, had the crowd going from the very start and the fans knew the words to almost every song. Just to make sure the sold out crowd was as amped up as possible, they threw in a cover of Linkin Park’s “One Step Closer” just for good measure and that got the fans even more rowdy.
By the time Beartooth took the stage, the crowd was foaming at the mouth for more. As the lights went down the crowd was deafening. They hit the fans with almost every Beartooth favorite they could ask for, with “In Between,” “Riptide,” “Sunshine!,” “The Past is Dead” and more.
From the start of the set, singer Caleb Shomo didn’t stand still, running and jumping around the stage like a possessed madman while the crowd gave him back every ounce of energy he gave them.
Their set ended with Shomo finding his way through the crowd, to the back of the room, playing guitar at the soundboard area and getting up close with everyone.
The bar was set high for Trivium but the band took the challenge, ran with it, grabbed the bar and shattered it.
They kicked things off with “Rain” and “Like Light to the Flies” but the real adrenaline kicked in when the very first chords of “Strife,” which saw the crowd chanting “Whoa, Oh Oh,” like they were at Download Festival or Wacken Open Air and it was overwhelming.
This happened off and on throughout the set and the band fed off of it at every corner they turned. Singer Matt Heafy told them that the best crowd on the tour so far had been Silver Spring, Md. The Indianapolis crowd booed Maryland and made a point to put Silver Spring to shame and that’s exactly what they did.
This show was the best a concert in the Egyptian Room has sounded in years and the sound mix was almost flawless. The lighting production was unmatchable and all three bands made sure the fans who paid their hard-earned money got exactly what they wanted out of it.
Rock and roll and heavy metal is a release; it’s a way for us to blow off steam, let the inside aggression and feelings out and leave feeling better than you did when you came in.
This tour is exactly that.
-Reggie Edwards