THE SOUND OF ANIMALS FIGHTING / HAIL THE SUN / CONCRETE CASTLES 1.20.2023

Jan 24

Photos and Words By Adam W Gerhold

We made it and we have arrived in 2023. What a way to start off the new year but with a move across the country from LA back to New England, and what a way to start off the year back on the east coast but with The Sound Of Animals Fighting.

The band pulled into Worcester supporting their new record, Apeshit, with two of the most fitting and complementary acts in toe: Concrete Castles and Hail The Sun.

From the moment I stepped out of my car into the cold and snowy Worcester evening and made my way to the box office to get my ticket and pass, I felt an energy. The line was already wrapping around the Palladium with shivering fans. Were they shivering from cold? From excitement? Yes. Yes.

The energy become more and more palpable as Concrete Castles opened the show followed by the great Hail The Sun. By the time TSOAF took the stage the crowd was plenty warmed up and ready to explode, and it was a good thing because as soon as, in my opinion, one of the best frontmen to do it, Anthony Green, stormed the stage, he leapt off the stage and right into the crowd. Green was met by ready and waiting crowd, hands, smiling and screaming faces, and even a horse tied to a pink balloon (see the pics).

The band and the crowd were as one throughout the entirety of the performance. Circle pits, singing, swaying, storming to the front, tossing around the horse, going… Apeshit! It was beautiful.

The band was on another level of tightness. Flowing seamlessly from new material to older and back. If you’ve been following the content the band has been sharing on their social media pages you’d know that each show was better than the last, and this was no different. Worcester showed up and TSOAF delivered one of the best shows I’ve been to in a long while and it could have been no better of a way to start 2023 off. Let’s get this!

CONCRETE CASTLES