Papa Roach and their ‘Kill the Noise’ tour torched the house at The Wellmont Theater last night in Montclair, New Jersey with support from Bad Wolves and Hollywood Undead. Celebrating it’s 100th year, the venue has some ticketed seating on the main floor, ample surrounding parking garages and reasonable food/drink selections in the heart of downtown.
The pulsing crowd was near capacity when Los Angeles hard rockers Bad Wolves took the stage. Featuring new vocalist, D. L., they performed a seven-song set including, ‘Sacred Kiss’, ‘If Tomorrow Never Comes’ and ‘Lifeline’ from their most recent offering titled ‘Dear Monsters’ as well as their insanely popular cover of The Cranberries ‘Zombie’. Their high-energy performance had the tension of a live wire and left expectations high for the next acts to come.
Hollywood Undead exploded onto the stage and set the fans into a wild mosh with their latest smash single ‘Chaos’. The California rap/rockers kept the bangers coming with ‘California Dreaming’, ‘Riot’ and ‘Comin’ In Hot’ which featured a fan, selected at random, from the audience on guitar.
Four members of this five-piece crew interchange vocal, guitar and bass contributions song to song and it works seamlessly with profound expertise. They released two albums in 2020, ‘New Empire, Vol. 1’ and ‘New Empire, Vol. 2’, have a listen and catch these guys live if you can handle the fireworks.
Jacoby Shaddix and his legendary outfit, Papa Roach, brought the fire straight out of the gate to a roaring reception with ‘Kill the Noise’ off their upcoming album, ‘Ego Trip’, set to drop on April 8th.
The simple, digital video backdrop was
not even necessary for the level of heat that Shaddix brought to the stage. With old school hits ‘Getting Away With Murder’, ‘Between Angels and Insects’ and ‘Help’ the building became alive as the fans sang along, feeding off the lyrics, one another and the wall of death unleashed for ‘Blood Brothers’.
The wildfire set also included ‘American Dreams’, ‘Forever’, ‘Scars’ and an encore with ‘Last Resort’, ‘Swerve’ and anthem ‘Born For Greatness’.
This tour is a perfectly complimented trio of impeccable talent that still has me shook. Shaddix is an entertainer like no other, an indescribable force of nature that after twenty plus years in this business, he shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. There are six stops left through April 2nd but with the new music due date looming we are likely to see more announcements coming soon.
Lisa Wills
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