Orlando UCF Arena – December 3rd 2008;

Supporting Avenged Sevenfold & Buckcherry

Most opening bands usually lack the energy to pull in such a highly charged response from the crowd, however Saving Abel had no trouble getting everyone’s attention. With lead singer Jared Weeks’s energetic and honest performance it’s easy to say why they’re on the bill!

The Mississippi born band, who have been likened to Buckcherry (who are co-headlining with Avenged Sevenfold), hold their own on the small space of stage they’re allocated, demanding the attention of the crowd.

Shinedown, were up next with singer Brent Smith leading the way with a high entrance into their single “Devour” After a build up from Smith challenging the crowd “The louder it gets in here the louder we are going to play for you”, Saving Abel’s front man Jared Weeks returned to centre stage for “”The Sound of Madness”, the audience growing louder and the arena began to fill up with excited fans.

Avenged Sevenfold open in a typical manner: Lights come on, the curtain drops and chants of “sevenfold” are replaced by ear piercing screams. Synyster Gates has entered the stage playing the opening chords to Critical Acclaim, and as subjectively as I try to be, it’s hard not to become aroused watching his fingers moving across the guitar. From the reaction of the crowd, it’s a problem shared by half the women in the arena, the other half are screaming for M Shadows and considering some of them wrestled in a swimming pool full of gravy to win tickets to this event they have every right to go crazy. The music is heavy, the lyrics are angry but the general feeling is that everyone is having fun, whether you’re in the pit or on stage the is a smile on your face.

“This one’s for all the ladies…” M Shadows says as he launches into upcoming single Scream, a song about violent sex and often accompanied by strippers, sadly not in Florida and its left to the women in the crowd to do the dancing, though it’s near impossible not to find yourself captivated by the beat or the guitarists suggestively jacking off their instruments. The tempo changes and we’re drawn into ballad Dear God, cell phones and lighters are raised for the entire song until there is silence and the band leave the stage.

The lights dim to an eerie blue and sounds emerge making you question if you’re at a Nine Inch Nails show as we’re treated to the first of three successive Synyster Gates guitar solos. This man clearly loves attention, the lights changing colour following his melody and openly flirting with several girls he can make eye contact with. ‘Take me to bed’ is a common thought during the third solo, which begins as a lullaby and builds up until the rest of the band have joined in.

The playful nature of Avenged ceases for the introduction of Gunslinger: ‘this one’s for the soldiers…brave men and women fighting…not about whether you agree with the war or not…just good people…prey they come home safe.’ And it’s sung without the trademark aviators, but with eyes closed and pouring as mach feeling into the song as he can, possibly so not to notice the crying members of the audience affected by the words.

UCF ARENA, Orlando, Florida – December 3rd 2008

99xmas Ball, Fort Myers, Florida – December 5th 2008