The Amity Affliction and Silverstein Rocked Red Flag Tuesday

Sean Derrick September 23, 2022 0 Comments Red Flag, Saint Louis concert review and photos, Silverstein, The Amity Affliction

–By Greg Artime

The Red Flag in Saint Louis played host to the co-headlining tour of Silverstein and The Amity Affliction Tuesday night. With a near capacity crowd on hand to get a fix of metal from two post-hardcore veteran bands.

After sets from openers Holding Absence and Unity Silverstein took the stage with “Infinite” from 2020’s A Beautiful Place To Drown and followed it up with “It’s Over” from their follow up Misery Made Me. It was great to get to hear lots of new music. After all, it has been 3 years since they last played across the river at Pop’s in 2019 (Thanks Covid). Since then they have released the aforementioned two albums (I mean, just about everyone had a lot of free time on their hands during the lockdown).

Silverstein performing at Red Flag. Photo by Greg Artime.

Lead vocalist Shane Told was stoked to play the new venue which opened quietly in late 2020, brazenly amid the pandemic. With a capacity of 1,000 it is a much-needed step up from the old Fubar nightclub just a block away. Told described the venue as “rad”, as has been the general consensus from concertgoers.

A barrage of headbanging commenced and the crowd surfing began in earnest during “Smashed Into Pieces” and never let up.

Told joked about how A Beautiful Place To Drown was released at the worst possible time in history, March 2020, and they were concerned that the album would get lost due to everything going on.

Told was all over the stage, constantly moving with lots of pent-up energy to spare. He also knows how to get a reaction from a crowd, making shoutouts to Cardinals legend Albert Pujols and his quest for 700 home runs, Wayne Gretzky (Who spends a lot of time here with his wife who is from here), and St. Louis’ own Story of the Year. Of course the crowd ate it up.

They hit songs from their beginning (“Stand Amid the Roar”) to their latest single “Die Alone” and touched on several eras in between.

They brought out a Price Is Right Wheel to spin for a song to shake up the set list so it is fresh every night. Great idea.

The band added “The Alter/Mary” to their setlist after receiving tons of tweets and messages from fans. Good choice.

They ended the night with their most played song on Spotify “My Heroine” and “The Afterglow” which had the packed house jumping.

Australia’s The Amity Affliction had a tough bar to reach when they came out to close the night. And the crowd was up for the challenge as well, immediately the crowd surfing began. And there was a lot of it.

Vocalists Joel Birch and Ahren Stringer weren’t as vocal with the crowd, offering the obligatory one liners of commendation to the crowd. Instead, he focused on the music, which is cool, too. Both styles are good, and both gave the crowd a different feel for each set. They were great feeding off each other back and forth with each song, feeding off each other’s energy, and the crowd could sense that as well.