Live: Five Finger Death Punch and Breaking Benjamin in Noblesville
September 1, 2018
Five Finger Death Punch and Breaking Benjamin are currently out on a massive co-headlining tour and it’s everything fans have been waiting for. With support from Nothing More and Bad Wolves this tour truly couldn’t be much better. The tour made a stop at the Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center in Noblesville, Indiana recently and of course we weren’t going to miss it.
Bad Wolves started off the night with a set that brought the audience together, in more ways than one. The band actually cut their set a song short so a man could propose to his girlfriend. Of course she said yes, who could say no to such a badass proposal? Vocalist Tommy Vext also got up close and personal with a younger fan during the bands final song of the night, their cover of The Cranberries “Zombie”, ushering in a whole new generation of metalheads.
Up next was Nothing More. This is one of the most mind blowing live bands taking the stage today. The band opened with “Do You Really Want It?” and continued full speed into the rest of their set, mixing in a good combination of old and new material for the fans.
Near the end of their set vocalist Johnny Hawkins climbs aboard the contraption known as the Scorpion Tail which is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen on stage. It’s basically a moving platform that shoots smoke from its and allows the frontman to look incredibly menacing and badass at the same time. Fans absolutely couldn’t get enough of it. They ended out their set with “Salem (Burn the Witch).”
Breaking Benjamin took the stage next and fans (and myself) were extremely pumped to hear some of their newest material live. Lucky for us they opened with their latest hit “Red Cold River” and it sounded even better live than I hoped it would. I was also happy that they still played some of the older hits like “Until the End” and “So Cold.” For “Diary of Jane,” their last song of the night they actually brought out fans on stage that had purchased their VIP package. Overall their set was amazing even though the lights made it a bit challenging to see the band members at times.
Finally it was time for the almighty Five Finger Death Punch. This was honestly one of the coolest stage setups I have seen from them this far. Not only did the band have pyro practically the entire set but there was a giant skull with baseball bats as crossbones as the backdrop for the night. It doesn’t get much more badass than that. The band got the crowd in the mood for their set with a little Barney sing along. Yes, the “I Love You” song sang by a purple dinosaur was being belted out by hundreds of FFDP fans.
It was pretty epic. Then to keep the laughs going, the band actually sent out Bad Wolves frontman Tommy Vext to kick off their first song “Lift Me Up”. Ivan joined in after the second verse and both vocalists finished out the song together. While fans are pretty familiar with frontman Ivan Moody’s substance abuse issues he did take time out of his set to address it and ask for fans forgiveness, which in my opinion is an absolutely amazing thing to do and really shows how much he is willing to move forward to be better for himself and his fans. The band went on to play their awesome cover of “Bad Company”, “Wash It All Away” and “Under and Over It.”
During their acoustic version of their hit “Remember Everything” the band brought out a fan that had just undergone surgery a week or two prior to the show and was a stage 4 cancer survivor. By the end of the song there was not a dry eye in the house. While FFDP has had their share of haters you have to admit that they really do go above and beyond for their fans.
This tour so far has been the tour of the summer in my opinion. You have 4 absolutely amazing bands putting everything they have into giving fans one hell of a night. The tour wraps up on September 9th in Cleveland Ohio.
-Reggie Edwards