Fox Reviews Rock

For our second gig and review of the year, we returned to the Motorpoint Arena to see Papa Roach, with our last visit being Sum 41 last year (if you missed it you can read the review here)

We arrived at 6.30, with the doors opening at 6pm, but the first act didn’t start until 7:50pm, we felt that this was a very unnecessary wait and the doors should have been later or the first band on earlier. We did use this time to meet up with Fox and Cozzer and catch up before the show, and get ourselves a new signed vinyl to add to our collection!

We decided to head into the standing area around 7.30pm where we got ourselves a decent spot and listened to the venue DJ play some music, then finally after an incredibly lengthy wait, the lights dimmed and Wage War came on stage.

Wage War are a Metalcore band from Ocala, Florida. Their set began with a dark smokey stage whilst the band were playing ‘THE SHOW’S ABOUT TO START’ which got the crowd up and moshing straight away!

They played 10 songs including ‘MAGNETIC’ and ‘NAIL5’, the crowd was constantly jumping and singing along! We really enjoyed the music especially the guitarist’s backing vocals, they were amazing and complemented the band very well, we did find that the lead singers vocals were a little quiet, but this seems to be an ongoing issue with support acts we have round, the sound system seems to put them in a negative light if they aren’t incredibly similar sounding to the headline band. They finished their set with “Manic” which was our favourite, and judging by the huge pit that formed, it seemed to be a crowd favourite too!

Although the sound difficulties the band still got the crowd hyped up and we thought they were a very good warm up for Papa Roach. We think they would make an excellent addition to the Download Festival line up!

As soon as Wage War ended their set, a big white curtain dropped with a cockroach on it, from the standing area we could see the shadows of the team swapping the stage over in preparation for Papa Roach, Fox and Cozzer could see behind the curtain from where they were sitting (we were texting back and fourth while waiting)

Papa Roach are a nu metal/rap eetal band from Vacaville, California, they focus a lot of their songs on mental health and have done throughout their 32 year long careers.

Finally the lights dimmed again and you could see the bands silhouettes behind the cockroach curtain, they began performing their new single “Even If It Kills Me’ from behind the curtain until the first choras when the curtain dropped and the crowd went mental!

We found that although the crowd were very obviously enjoying the show, their pit and gig etiquette was lacking, we had several people fall down in the pit without anyone picking them up, one guy maliciously got punched in the face, and you were constantly being grabbed or rammed into at the side of the pit (more aggressively than usual)

Although the entitlement of a lot of the crowd, we still enjoyed some of our favourite hits ‘…To Be Loved’ and ‘Getting Away With Murder’. During the second half of the set Jacoby Shaddix spoke about suicide with a special mention to Linkin Parks Chester Bennington just before playing a video where he spoke about mental health in a bit more depth, he also told us that the proceeds from the tickets sold will be going to several mental health charities. Playing one of their most popular songs ‘Scars’ Jacoby got very emotional and was in awe of how much the crowd loved that song and knew all the words.

One of our favourite parts of the night was Papa Roaches tribute to nu metal artists where they covered small parts of early nu metal songs, including  Korn “Blind”, Deftones “My Own Summer (Shove It)”, Limp Bizkit “Break Stuff” and our top choice System Of A Down “Chop Suey”.

Papa Roach then played a 5 song encore beginning with “Between Angels and Insects”, and finishing with “Last Resort” which got the whole arena bouncing! This is the 3rd time we have seen Papa Roach, and despite the crowd’s poor attitude, we thought that the band performed the best!

St. Jimmy and Rex 🖤☠️

All rights to the songs in this review are retained by the relevant artists and this site claims no rights over them.

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