August Burns Red at Sound Academy – November 28, 2013

August Burns Red made their way back to Toronto on Thursday night and brought along Bear Tooth, Defeater & blessthefall along for the ride as they supported their latest album Rescue & Restore.

The Sound Academy filled up slowly, but by the time blessthefall’s set came around the venue was packed with fans eagerly awaiting them to hit the stage. Their set was full of energy as they got the crowd ready for ABR by playing songs off of their latest album Hollow Bodies and tossing in some old fan favourites such as ‘2.0’ and ‘Whats Left Of Me’. It was really great to finally hear a lot of BTF’s newer songs being played live as I feel that they’ve really grown and matured as musicians with their latest album.

When the lights finally dimmed for August Burns Red the crowd went nuts and began chanting ‘ABR! ABR! ABR!’. They opened up with ‘Provision’ and ‘Fault Line’, which both come off of Rescue & Restore, but as the night progressed they didn’t forget to include some of their oldies such as ‘The Truth Of A Liar’ and ‘Meddler’. One thing that I thought was amazing about this set is how all the fans were on their feet moshing and crowd surfing. I even saw someone in wheelchair crowd surf multiple times during ABR’s set! It was really neat to see how the band and their fans fed off of each other’s energy throughout the night. As the night came to a close, ABR  played their metal rendition of ‘Frosty The Snowman’.