In This Moment And Halestorm Lifted The Roof Off Stifel Theatre Thursday With Powerful Sets

Sean Derrick December 1, 2018 0 Comments Arejay Hale, Halestorm, In This Moment, Lzzy Hale, Maria Brink, New YEars Day, Saint Louis concert review and photos, Stifel Theatre

–By Sean Derrick

Thursday night’s concert with metalcore favorites In This Moment and Grammy Winners Halestorm Hell bent on proving that women fronted bands kick ass. For most of 2018 (this is the tour’s 3^rd leg) they have proved that point and then some.

Billed from the outset as a co-headlining tour the tour is set with the opener New Years Day, then in This Moment, and finally Halestorm closing out the show every night.

Arejay Hale of Halestorm performing at Stifel Theatre in Saint Louis Thursday night. Photo by Sean Derrick/Thyrd Eye Photography.

Visually stunning and thoroughly captivating, it was hard to look away during In This Moment’s entire set. Vocalist Maria Brink continues to enthrall with her strong and enchanting vocals, and the band (guitarist Christ Howorth, bassist Travis Johnson, guitarist Randy Weitzel, and drummer Kent Diimmel)

ITM’s shows are a sensory smorgasbord as Brink and her “Blood girls” tear through an elaborate display of stunning theatrics infused with melodic metalcore. With costume changes in between every song it sometimes feels like you are at the coolest Broadway musical you will ever see.

Touring in support of their latest album Ritual from last summer, the band pulled 5 songs from the album. The rest came from 2014’s Black Widow and 2012’s Blood.

Their strongest stuff came from “Roots” and a powerful cover of Phil Collins “In the Air Tonight” with Brink alone on a piano upfront showing off her incredible vocal range.

While the styles of In This Moment and Halestorm can both be defined as “metal” the similarities end there. Where ITM’s live show is based on stunning visuals coupled with heavy doses of shredding metal chops Halestorm focuses on a rawer based emotional blues driven rock.

Whereas you can hear Halestorm on local stations KSHE 95 and 105.7 The Point, you would be hard pressed to hear much ITM on their playlists, unfortunately. Halestorm focused on that dynamic and performed a straight forward rock show. Light on talk and glitz, heavy on guitars and riffs.

Lzzy Hale of Halestorm performing at Stifel Theatre in Saint Louis Thursday night. Photo by Sean Derrick/Thyrd Eye Photography.

Vocalist/guitarist Lzzy Hale emitted obvious visual comparisons to Joan Jett but in a harder rocking way. Clad in a spike-studded leather jacket Hale and the rest of the band (her brother Arejay Hale on drums, guitarist Joe Nessinger, and bassist Josh Smith) rolled through 15 songs in their 75-minute set.

With an emphasis on guitar solos (and an interesting drum solo by Arejay where he pulled out a pair of ginormous 4-foot-long drumsticks and actually did part of his solo with them) and raw vocal emotion that was especially evident on songs like “Freak Like Me” and “Vicious”, the title track from their latest album released in July.

As bad-ass as this tour has become, I would love to see it expand into a summer touring festival of all female fronted metal bands. Yes there has been some one off festivals done, but a touring festival would hit all parts of the country and be divine, and not In a wimpy Lilith Fair-type of way. There are so many great female fronted metal bands out there that this could be done.

Besides, the U.S. is in need of a touring festival to replace Mayhem and Uproar Festivals. What better way to replace them than with this?

Ash Costello of New Years Day performing at Stifel Theatre in Saint Louis Thursday night. Photo by Sean Derrick/Thyrd Eye Photography.

New Years Day provided a vibrant opening set, even if the audience didn’t seem receptive.

One of the only downsides to this show was the limitation of having to shoot only from the very end of the orchestra pit. While this was fine for Halestorm and New Years Day, the set for In This Moment is set up for dynamic shots up the middle as well as the sides.