On February 20th, 2024- Disturbed performed at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville SC on their “Take Back Your Life” tour with special guests; Plush and Falling In Reverse. When I entered the arena; all you saw in the crowd was almost every age group from the elderly population to toddlers wearing Disturbed merch. The arena was packed from beginning to end.
Plush
Opening the night was the all female band; Plush. I actually saw them for the first time when they opened up for Alice In Chains in 2022 on September 27th in Raleigh NC! My mother is very hard to impress when it comes to music and she fell in love with their sound and stated that it's nice to see young rock stars that are women because it's a very male dominated scene. The band consists of; Moriah Formica (Vocals) , Ashley Suppa (Bass) , Bella Perron (Guitar) , and Faith Powell (Drums). The second they went on stage; the individuals at the barricade went absolutely insane. Seeing that amount of excitement for an opener and an all female band; it was astonishing to see. Plush performed songs such as; Athena, Champion, and one of the most iconic songs; Barracuda. The vocal range that Moriah has is completely astounding. To be able to sing Barracuda, you have to have a certain vocal range and Moriah's live performance of that song with the mixture of the other band members made it sound better than the original song. Ashley throughout their set never stayed still and was either jumping, swooshing her hair, or interacting with her other band members. Bella; her stage presence is out of this world. She has such a spice to her and the facial expressions she had throughout her performance kept me always staring at her. NOW; Faith. I love drummers and I was so excited to finally photograph a female drummer. For her being as young as she is; she is one of the most talented drummers I’ve seen live and her smiles were very contagious.
Falling in Reverse
Next up was the one and only; Falling In Reverse. The band consists of Ronnie Radke (Vocals), Luke Holland (Drums), Max Georgiev (Guitar) , Tyler Burgess (Bass) , and Christian Thompson (Rhythm Guitar). Their set was one of the hardest sets I’ve photographed due to the stage being at least 5’8ft and there was a catwalk added which made the height over 7ft almost. I tried my best and was on my tippy toes throughout the whole set attempting to capture every musician. The set was pretty much dark the whole time which made it difficult, but Ronnie made sure during the set he would stand near lights, but he did pace back and forth on the catwalk. It was one of the most difficult, but entertaining sets. Falling In Reverse has Luke Holland currently on tour who is the founder of “MixWave” audio software and he became famous online for doing drum playthroughs such as August Burns Red, Wizkhalfia, Texas In July,and I See Stars. Watching him drum finally in person, I was in complete awe because this man is insanely talented and just by the crowd; all I could hear was “LUKEEEEE!!!”
The band performed songs such as; Zombified, I’m Not A Vampire, and Losing My Mind”. They performed Zombified first and we all know Ronnie; he wants to make a point stating no one can cancel him and that he’s still here touring the world. Zombified was released on January 5th, 2022 with 99 million spotify plays with Popular Monster being the highest played song with over 300 million spotify plays!
Disturbed
It was finally time to see the one band that I’ve been listening to since 2000; Disturbed. The band consists of; David Draiman (Vocals) , Mike Wengren (Drums) , John Moyer (Bass) , and Dan Donegan (Guitar). The beginning of their set; they had a large kabuki covering the whole front of the stage to prevent anyone seeing anything behind it. The music started and you could see the silhouettes of the musicians behind the kabuki with their instruments and then the kabuki fell and the pyro in the back lit up the whole arena. When I tell you the pyro was HOT; It was hot because I was sweating within 30 seconds of their performance starting.
The one song that had myself and the crowd going was their second song; Stupify. Between Moyer and Donegan jumping consistently and attempting to capture Draiman at the same time; it was difficult, but so thrilling to capture fast movements. The pyro was on a tilting machine, so it was constantly moving in different directions throughout the song which was very interesting to see. During that song; I have no idea how David did not pass out from the heat wearing the trenchcoat. I would’ve passed out If I was wearing that on stage! If you want to listen to a band that sounds exactly like they do on spotify; you need to come to a Disturbed show. It honestly felt like I was listening to them in the car because David sounds EXACTLY the same. The voice of that man is unbelievable. They also played Hey You in the beginning of their set and the crowd instantly started headbanging and raising their fists in the air!
Well, that wraps it up! One of the best shows I’ve been to in a very long time. It was worth the 4 hour drive! And I would do that in a heartbeat again to experience what I did that night again. And seeing an all female band on this lineup made this experience even better because we want to see more women succeed in the music industry especially in the rock scene! What a show!