Opening Acts That Stole The Show

[Bandersnatch]

Tell us about going to a show, expecting the headliners to be the best of the night, but an opening act did it better.

Mine: Cancer Bats opening up for Bullet for my Valentine. Better lightshow, way more energy and way more engagement with the crowd. Seriously killer group. Became a big fan after that night.

 

[GunpointMetal]

Conjurer on the last RoN/Entheos tour. Every band that played was awesome, but Conjurer's energy and sound that night were so much better than everyone else's. Entheos had some weird thing with the robot voice effect she uses that wouldn't turn off for like 2 whole songs, and RoN had some serious sound issues with the saxophone microphones that kinda pulled me out of the performance a little bit.

 

[jaxadam]

Chon over Animals as Leaders

 

[Dwellingers]

Spawn of Possession for Hate Eternal and Visceral Bleeding for Cryptopsy.

 

[DudeManBrother]

Beyond Creation opening for Obscura

 

[Ordacleaphobia]

Twice- the first was a show Protest the Hero was headlining with Scale the Summit opening and they absolutely stole it. Vibes were great, sound was solid, and the playing was spot on. Protest's set was still great, but the sound guy didn't do them any favors. It was so bad that midway through the set Rody called him out on it from the stage. Everything sounded great for Scale's set though, and they kind of ended up feeling like the headliners.

Then a few years later I caught Born of Osiris in Sacramento with Veil of Maya and After the Burial. I never expected BoO (the actual headliners) to have the best set of the night; but I was assuming it was going to be Veil that ran away with it. The energy during that After the Burial set though was absolutely insane and the crowd's response & participation was some of the best I'd ever seen. That whole show was exceptional.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Tell us about going to a show, expecting the headliners to be the best of the night, but an opening act did it better.

Mine: Cancer Bats opening up for Bullet for my Valentine. Better lightshow, way more energy and way more engagement with the crowd. Seriously killer group. Became a big fan after that night.

Fuck yeah, Cancer Bats! They never come up on here. Good stuff.

Municipal Waste: I'm not a big fan of thrash, and I had heard their recorded music, but live was something else entirely. They opened for The Black Dahlia Murder, Through The Eyes of The Dead, and one more fairly popular metalcore act from around 05'/06' and absolutely killed the stage show. Everyone was just having so much fun and they really knew how to play the crowd.

Into The Moat: They were either the opener or right after the opener of a Cattle Decapitated, Necrophagist, Arsis show. Now, we know all those bands can freaking play, but the ITM guys absolutely destroyed. It was techy and heavy and dynamic. Everyone else just sounded "boring" afterwards, if that makes sense.

Symphony X: They had a fairly early in the day set on the first Gigantour (MegaDave, Dream Theater, DEP, etc.). Absolutely killed it.

 

[gunshow86de]

I remember seeing 'pre-Ascendancy' Trivium and Chimaira open for Machine Head. Bury Your Dead opened for one of those mid-00's Christian-Screamocore bands (that I've consolidated into one band in my head) and destroyed.

I also want to say I saw Between the Buried an Me open for 6 Feet Under once, but that was so long ago I might be confused.

 

[gunshow86de]

Into The Moat: They were either the opener or right after the opener of a Cattle Decapitated, Necrophagist, Arsis show. Now, we know all those bands can freaking play, but the ITM guys absolutely destroyed. It was techy and heavy and dynamic. Everyone else just sounded "boring" afterwards, if that makes sense.

I still listen to 'The Design' a few times a year. Underrated album/band for sure. I remember them being great live too.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

I remember seeing 'pre-Ascendancy' Trivium and Chimaira open for Machine Head. Bury Your Dead opened for one of those mid-00's Christian-Screamocore bands (that I've consolidated into one band in my head) and destroyed.

I also want to say I saw Between the Buried an Me open for 6 Feet Under once, but that was so long ago I might be confused.

BTBAM is another great example.

I remember seeing them on their last tour before Alaska was released. Sometime around 2004. It was at this really small venue called The Roxy in WPB, Florida. There was maybe 100 people there to see a few decently popular MySpace era hardcore and metalcore bands. They came on right before the headliner, and absolutely stole the show. When they broke out Selkies at the end of the show I was speechless.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

I still listen to 'The Design' a few times a year. Underrated album/band for sure. I remember them being great live too.

I'll have to dust that one off. It's been awhile.

 

[Werecow]

I saw Megadeth with Pantera supporting, Pantera were touring their Vulgar Display of Power album. I actually went to see Pantera mainly, but they blew away the whole theatre. The whole floor was one giant moshpit.
Megadeth came on after and people were mostly just standing around, watching. Between Megadeth's songs, people who didn't know Pantera were still excitedly chatting about just them.

The next year they came back headlining on Far Beyond Driven. That show was awesome too.

 

[Rosal76]

Into The Moat: They were either the opener or right after the opener of a Cattle Decapitated, Necrophagist, Arsis show. Now, we know all those bands can freaking play, but the ITM guys absolutely destroyed. It was techy and heavy and dynamic. Everyone else just sounded "boring" afterwards, if that makes sense.

If I had to take a guess, I would think that crowds react more to bands that have a lot of groovy riffs. If I saw Necrophagist live, I would probably just stand there like a zombie and stare at Muhammed Suicmez's finger gymnastics. But for Into the moat, that would me make want to headbang and join the most pit.

 

[GunpointMetal]

If I had to take a guess, I would think that crowds react more to bands that have a lot of groovy riffs. If I saw Necrophagist live, I would probably just stand there like a zombie and stare at Muhammed Suicmez's finger gymnastics. But for Into the moat, that would me make want to headbang and join the most pit.

When I saw Necrophagist they had no problem with crowd movement. Wasn't as wild as Cephalic Carnage or Ion Dissonance, but definitely not a "stand and stare" thing.

 

[mastapimp]

Children of Bodom opening for Iced Earth in the mid 2000s. I went mainly for Bodom but decided to give Iced Earth a shot since they've been around forever and have somewhat of a large following. We ended up leaving after 2 and half songs. They were a total bore and their light show was non-existent.

Conquering Dystopia opening for Animals as Leaders. Alex Rudinger was the highlight of the night for me.

I've probably seen In Flames 4-5 times and the last show of theirs I went to on the Come Clarity tour was opened by DevilDriver and Trivium, both of whom outperformed the Swedes that night. This was around the time Anders was mellowing out and their sound was about to drastically change. DevilDriver was filming their video for "End of the Line" at this show, so they got the crowd pretty riled up to start off the night.

Symphony X: They had a fairly early in the day set on the first Gigantour (MegaDave, Dream Theater, DEP, etc.). Absolutely killed it.

I also caught this tour and remember Nevermore putting on a killer set right after Symphony X. Even though Warrel looked like he had one foot in the grave, they had an intensity and and energy far above many of the other bands that night. Fear Factory was dreadful that evening and was a huge letdown for me.

 

[cip 123]

Arcane Roots over Coheed and Cambria.

Coheed were great, Arcane were just silly good though.

Bought Blood and Chemistry quickly after that show and it is one of my favourite albums to date.

 

[Sumsar]

Gorguts at the Copenhell festival in 2014.

They played fairly early on the smallest stage, me and my drummer hadn't heard about them before and the festival program called it 'classic death metal', so we where like 'Sure let us spend 10 minutes on that and stay if it is any good'.

They played a lot of material from Colored Sands (2013) and quickly we realized that this was THE concert of this years festival, and also pretty far away from 'classic death metal'.

We both became fans on the spot, and here 5 years later it is the concert I remember most from that year. I think Behemoth and a couple of others band that I was looking forward to played that year, but they where not as memorable as Gorguts

 

[Acme]

Rotting Christ opening for Dissection in 2005. The studio albums of Rotting Christ are pretty mediocre, but they were amazing that night!

 

[coreysMonster]

Nekrogoblikon opening for Rings of Saturn. Probably one of the single most entertaining live acts I've ever seen in my life.

 

[MFB]

It's tough for me to say if they were better than the headliner, because those guys are legitimately in my top 5 bands, but Good Tiger was at least on the same level as Protest the Hero when they were here last year. I thought they were the more prototypical djent formula given them being members of bands with names like Red Seas Fire (who I had also lumped into that category) and having certain gear, etc... but in the end they came out and just crushed it.