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I became an Underoath fan with their latest release, the epic Define the Great Line.  So hey, when they come to town within a couple months of releasing said record, who am I to not go? 

The wife and I made it to the show just a bit before doors opened.  I'm well past having the patience or need to show up hours in advance to get "the best spot."  I'll get to the music directly but first, I have to say this:  Man I felt old.  My wife tells me the generation gap is considered to be about six whole years these days.  I looked around at the fifteen-eighteen year olds a head shorter than me dressed in low-riding jeans, black band t-shirts and either a labret or nose piercing and felt very, very old.  That's not right.  I'm only twenty-five.  There's no reason I should feel old!  Get off my lawn, you kids!

Ahem.  Moving on.  Head inside!  Bored, bored, bored, why is the concert taking so long?  Ah, He Is Legend opening!  Heard about these guys.  I'll say this, they are one killer live show.  The bass player and rhythm guitar player are two TOUGH dudes with cut-off shirts and big muscles.  The bass player had long METAL hair and swirled it around.  It has to be seen to believe, the bass and rhythm guys raising their right arms in a full-on bicep bulging curl while playing a good fifteen-twenty seconds of riffage one-handed.  Awesome.  Lead singer Schuylar Croom looks like he should be a hippie band then a wild dirty southern riff-metal band, carrying about the stage like a Gumby figure and then surprising with screaming vocals.  I didn't know any songs, but man, I was blown away by this band.  They're just pure entertainment with hot songs to back it up.  I have etched in my mind an image of Croom throwing his head back, raising his mic to the sky and belting out "I---AM---HOLLYWOOOOD!". 

(For the record and for clarity, He Is Legend is not a christian band.  Their clear and detailed website FAQ addresses that very question:  "A christian band is a band that corporately accepts the followings of Christ, and we cannot claim that for ourselves.  Some of the members believe in and try to follow after Christ, some don't.   No one in the band really shares much of the same thoughts on anything, so to corporately stand for something would be a sham.  If we had to be classified as something it would be a "band" band" or "music" band.  Huge respect to HIL for directly addressing an issue they no doubt face regularly being on SolidState Records.  I would love to see other "ambiguous" bands with the balls to just say "hey, this is what's what, take it or leave it."  Assuming you haven't "left it" now, go out and buy He Is Legend for some dark, creepy and great hard music.)

Next up, Silverstein, some emo/screamo band the kids were all into.  The wife and I stuck around for a couple songs and decided they weren't for us and hauled off to the beer gardens.  Didn't feel like a drink but needed some relative peace and quiet.  There were maybe a dozen people in a cavernous hall of the Croat Center, so we relaxed.  Of course, I had figured that with Underoath being the headliner, none of the opening bands would play for more than 25-30 minutes.  HIL was up for twenty-five.  Moneen should be similar.  Unfortunately, 45 minutes later they still weren't off the stage.  When they finally DID get off the stage...

Horrors!  Sound board problems!  A good thirty-plus minutes later and Moneen hit the stage.  It might be possible that Silverstein came second and Moneen first of the two bands.  They sounded and looked pretty much exactly the same. I was becoming restless and increasingly bored.  My tolerant and patient wife followed me as I wandered from outside to the beer gardens to the hall and back around again.  Thirty-five minutes later "Sorry guys, we have to cut our set short, but Underoath is letting us have some extra time so we got two more songs!" 

I WILL BANG MY HEAD AGAINST THIS WALL. 

FINALLY.  SilverEen got off the stage.  Technical problems fixed.  We showed up at six p.m. for four bands, it was now ten frigging o'clock.  FINALLY, I said for the eleventeenth time that evening... 

FINALLY.  Underoath took the stage.  Forget that I was tired, bored and annoyed.  Wow.  Just wow. 

Six guys on stage.  The drummer does the "melodic" vocals and the screaming?  Left to a wild, skinny tall guy with long long hair.  Underoath are always moving on stage but they're not forced or over-done like the kids in bands based on Underoath.  My favorite guy in the band to watch was the keyboardist.   Everyone else in the band looked like a fresh-faced young man, maybe twenty-two.  This guy was probably the same age, but this heavy-set bearded dude in a Pantera t-shirt played the keyboards while head-banging and rocking out and yelling out every song lyric though he has no mic was amazing to watch.  Man, he loves doing this.  Underoath blistered through a number of songs from the new album and some older stuff.  I was too wrapped up in singing along and getting out of my old fogey shell to dance a bit too really pay attention to what songs were being played, though I will say they stuck mostly to their most two recent albums.  There was maybe one or two songs I didn't recognize.  The opener was "In Regards To Myself," track number one on _Define The Great Line_ and intense.  The pit got bigger and bigger, a huge space opening up in the middle of stage-front as shirt-less teenage boys ran in and out of it flailing wildly, uncaring about getting hit with or hitting other people with their undulating sweaty torsos.  Totally rad. 

The band left the stage, and then of course returned for "one more song."  Then something special began to happen that will lose it's impact when translated through words.  Chris Dudley (keys) began playing some stuff while the band took their stages.  Spencer Chamberlain, the scraggly-haired lead throat, began to speak.  He talked about how the band was supposed to be in Vancouver for Warped, but they didn't make it... and they didn't know if they'd ever play Vancouver or anywhere again.  But then "God came down" and fixed the relationships and people in the band.  And my spine shivered in awe when he said "I just want you to know, we stand before you all in the name of Jesus Christ.  We love you all, and if you don't know him, hey, we love you.  His love is so good." 

With that, the band drew into the one song I dared hope they play and refused to get my hopes up for.  It's called "Some Will Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape."  The crowd sang, they screamed, and for the first time in far, far too long... I felt something from a band.  I felt perhaps the spirit of God in the room, I felt EMOTION and freedom from thinking too hard about this or that or how well the show was being run.  "Hey unfaithful, I will help you / to be stronger, to be strong / hey ungraceful, I will teach you / to forgive one another / Hey unloving, I will love you..." And power.  "JESUS!  I'M READY TO COME HOME!"  Not cheesy.  Not lame.  Awe, as in awe-some.

Add in a killer rendition of "A Boy Brushed Red Living In Black & White" and Underoath left the crowd happy. 

Suzanne and I made our way back out to the car.  As I was unlocking it, I heard some boys walking behind us. 

"Man, I thought it was lame when he started like preaching, but like, that was cool what he said, you know, that they love us even if we don't believe what they believe, you know?  That was like cool." 

I suppose what I went to was less an "Underoath" show and more like a mini-fest.  The venue is one of the only large all-ages rooms in Vancouver, but that doesn't change the fact that sound in the Croat Center sucks.  The opening bands played way too long.  The problems with the sound system made the entire ordeal more frustrating... 

Yet.  Still.  All I really remember is Underoath doing something more than putting on a rock show.  By being honest, sincere, raw and transparent on stage, they somehow were able to bring worship - honest, sincere, raw worship - into the middle of some dirty Vancouver hall with a bunch of dirty, trying-to-hard kids figuring themselves out. 

Underoath first and foremost put on an amazing show at breakneck speed, with an energy level I could not believe.  The crowd got their money's worth. 

But other than that... maybe, just maybe, my heart wasn't the only heart unthawed inside that room. 

This is me breathing.

Ryan Ro / hollandrow.wordpress.com