Protest The Hero at the Danforth Music Hall

Photos by Katrina Wong Shue

Protest the Hero took their 10 year anniversary tour of “Fortress” to the Danforth Music Hall on Friday May 4th.

As the lights dimmed and the crowd’s excitement built up, singer Rody Walker stepped onto the stage casually and announced to the crowd that he had blown his throat.

“If I can’t do it, were gonna have to re-schedule the show,” Walker said on the first of 3 nights at the Danforth.

Following his short speech on the predicament, the crowd’s energy quickly changed and lots of chatter was had in regards to what was going to happen.

Although I personally became a little doubtful that the full show would proceed, it did. It exceeded the crowds expectations, following Walkers speech and myself.

As their style over the years has evolved, like most successful bands commonly do, I did question the quality of the show. For instance, “Pacific Myth” includes more singing than screaming, in comparison to “Fortress.” I questioned if this was for a reason.

Regardless of my hesitation as a result of stylization change and Walkers speech, the band proceeded to deliver an unforgettable performance. As this album is an imperative one to PTH fans, this performance was of great appreciation to the crowd.

It would most definitely be challenging for any band to re-visit an entire album from 10 years prior following a stylization change, and perform it live. With that being said, the band pulled this off so impressively. I was also wondering if they would skip over specific sections of songs due to Walkers blown throat, but they didn’t- they pulled through accurately.

“Limb from Limb” was a stellar performance. When performing the song live, the band sometimes neglects the utilization of the synths however they utilized them in this one, making the performance even better.

The show consisted of the 10 song album, with no encore. Typically this would disappoint me however, the sole purpose and focus of the show was “Fortress.” As the performance and album overall leave such an effective impression, an encore could’ve potentially take away from the impact of the album, so I was okay with the performance ending as the album would, allowing everyone to soak it in that much more.

Protest the Hero puts on a unique and exciting metal show. Between their ability to connect with the crowd, perform accurately to the sound of their records, and be one of Canada’s own, they are definitely a performance you don’t wanna miss out on.