metalaxe magazine and gallery: Pop Evil with Red Sun Rising, Islander, Letters From The Fire and Hurry Home at The Intersection

Pop Evil

Red Sun Rising

Islander

Letters From The Fire

Hurry Home

The Intersection, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Concert Review

and

Islander cd review

On December 20th, 2014 Pop Evil makes it back to their hometown Grand Rapids, Michigan at The Intersection for the holidays. Hurry Home, a local rock band from Grand Rapids, Michigan opened the sold out show. Pop Evil brought with them three other bands: Letters From The Fire, Islander and Red Sun Rising.

You can always know how good bands are by the sold out shows. They are selling out for a reason. All five bands kept the crowd entertained so much we noticed there was not any fights taking place.

The true feel of the show is forget your worries and rock out and have a great time with great rock and roll. This made for an unforgettable night at The Intersection.

Hurry Home: Consists of Tyler Lautzenheiser on drums, Scott Lotterman on vocals, Kyle Viana on guitar, Jake Pokora on bass and Ron Hardy on guitar. The hardest job for any band is to get the crowd fired up and keep them going. Hurry Home did a great job of getting the packed crowd rocking out with good pure rock and roll.

Hurry Home setlist:

No Apologies

A Proper Undoing

I’m Tellin’ You

Selfish Love

The Way It Goes

Storylines

Party’s Over

Letters From The Fire: Consists of Elliot Weber on vocals, Mike Keller on guitar, Grayson Hurd on guitar, Clayton Wages on bass and Ben Anderson on drums. Letters From The Fire comes from the San Francisco Bay Area, California and was founded in 2012. Letters From The Fire kept the crowd fired up with their hard and metal sound.

Letters From The Fire setlist:

On My Own

Surrender

Waiting

Zombies In The Sun

Crazy

Reaction

Eleanor Rigby

Islander: Consists of J.R. on guitar, Eric on drums, Doot on bass and Mikey on vocals. If you like P.O.D. or Rage Against The Machine then you would love Islander. We could not resist buying their cd to hear the full album.

Their sound attracts all different types of music lovers appealing to hard rock and metal fans as well.

Islander set list:

Counteract

The Sadness Of Graves

Cold Speak

Lucky Rabbit

New Wave

Criminals

Coconut Dracula

Islander CD, Violence & Destruction music list:

Counteract

The Sadness Of Graves

Coconut Dracula

Cold Speak

Pains

Kingdom

Side Effects Of Youth

New Wave

Criminals

Mira

Hearts Grow Cold

Violence & Destruction

When we review cd’s we categorize song into what it would relate best to such as cruising, working out, playing at parties and long road trips. The very last test of music is the sleep on it test where you listen to songs going to sleep. When you wake up from sleeping think of the first song that goes through your head.

Workout songs that keep you fired up and moving would be “Heart”, “Cold Speak”, “Pains”, “Coconut Dracula”, “Side Effects Of Youth” and “Criminals”. Great cruising songs would be “Mira”, “Violence & Destruction”, “New Wave”, “Kingdom”, “Pains”, “Cold Speak”, “The Sadness” and “Counteract”. The songs that keep the crowd ready to party would be “Violence & Destruction”, “Side Effects Of Youth”, “Coconut Dracula” and “Counteract”.

The sleep on it test song would be “Violence & Destruction”, “Kingdom” and “Coconut Dracula”. The cd was good for everything you have going on. The band is worth seeing over again and when they come out with another album we will buy that one too.

Tour dates:

https://www.facebook.com/weareislander/app_123966167614127

http://weareislander.com/tour_dates

Red Sun Rising: Consists of Mike Protich on guitar and vocals, Ryan Williams on guitar, Tyler Valendza on guitar, Shawn Cline on bass and Brett Weir on drums. Red Sun Rising comes from Akron, Ohio and was founded in 2007. Red Sun Rising kept the sold out crowd warmed up for Pop Evil.

You can hear their influences in their music. Among some of them we heard were Tool, A Perfect Circle, Stone Temple Pilots, Metallica, Soundgarden and even The Beatles. All great bands that my metal son and I like as well.

Tour dates:

https://www.facebook.com/redsunrisingmusic/app_123966167614127

Pop Evil: Consists of Leigh Kakaty on vocals, Davey Grahs on guitar, Nick Fuelling on guitar, Matt DiRitto on bass and Chachi Riot brings the thunder of the drum. Pop Evil is from Grand Rapids, Michigan and was formed in 2007. This band always brings a great live show no matter where they play.

When you listen to their music there are some of the songs that you can’t get out of your head. Some of the songs that are like this are: “Deal With The Devil”, “100 In A 55”, “Torn To Pieces”, “Trenches”, “Boss’ Daughter” and “Last Man Standing”. While writing articles we usually don’t give our personal opinion on songs or bands but for one song I had to.

“Torn To Pieces”, I feel is a rock and roll masterpiece because of it being so visual and the perfect flow of music highs and lows to match the lyrics. Pop Evil is on tour supporting their Onyx album.

Pop Evil setlist:

Deal With The Devil

Flawed

Hero

Behind Closed Doors

Devide

Somebody Like You

100 In A 55

Monster

Beautiful

Boss’ Daughter

Last Man Standing