Underoath - Voyeurist (January 14, 2022) Album • Page 56

I’ve talked about it with my girlfriend about encores. Why don’t these bands play a song over the speakers. Like for UO they could do something off TOCS that they won’t play live. Keeps the crowd engaged as they sing a long and then gives you more of a break.

MCR did this when they went from The Black Parade to MCR during that tour

 

We as a species should simply just abolish encores

 

honestly i feel like the crowd was fried. the crowd was fully into all the openers

 

yeah, I personally was exhausted just from UO's set

 

Revisiting Erase Me today largely because of all the talk about it in these Deep Dives. It's a record I listened to a good amount in 2018, but haven't gone back to it much at all since then.

It's kind of cool to pick up on a lot of the disjointedness the guys talk about in the Deep Dives for Voyeurist. There's some stuff on Erase Me that I really like, even four years later. I think the album does more or less peak with "On My Teeth", which Tim mentioned when talking about the structure of the record. It's sort of an emotional high and you spend the rest of the album waiting for something to equal or surpass it and it just never does.

I know people largely hate "ihateit", but it's actually one of my favorite tracks on here. It's certainly strange for Underoath, and maybe it's because the lyrics were very poignant for me at the time it was released, but I felt like it held up. "Hold Your Breath" is another that still works for me. I love the melody in the chorus.

I know they're still playing "No Frame" and seem to think highly of that one, and I get that it sort of acts as a precursor in a way to a lot of what they did on Voyeurist, but, I don't know, it doesn't do anything for me. I'd rather just...listen to Voyeurist.

There's some good songs here, but I'm not sure if they're good Underoath songs. If I heard them on rock radio, I'd think "oh, this isn't bad," but I probably wouldn't go seek out the artist or dive in any further.

 

Spiritbox missing the next “few days” of the tour due to a Covid case. I’m seeing em Saturday, reaaaaally hope they’re able to safely play by then.

 

Never got around to talking about the Portland show, but it was a blast! Band sounded on-point and even better than when I saw them in 2018. Better venue too. New songs sounded great live, I just wish there were more of them in the setlist. Obviously biggest crowd reactions came from TOCS and DTGL, which is just whatever to me these days. I don't like TOCS much anymore, but DTGL will always be great live. I thought their lighting setup was superb, especially for the venue size. Surprisingly ended up liking Spiritbox a bit. They had good stage presence.

Some interesting highlights:

Spencer mentioning numerous times about Portland show only being announced two weeks before and they weren't even supposed to be coming here. Apparently they had an open date after getting denied entry into Canada, so they were grateful to have such a strong turnout for a last-minute show. He brought it up like 4-5 times. Crowd definitely seemed a little burned out a bit towards the end of Underoath's set.

The other interesting thing was Aaron trying to get Spencer's attention near the end, when they had 4 songs left. After they chatted, Spencer announced there wouldn't be an encore. Just playing the next four songs and that's it. It was kind of refreshing honestly. They played exactly what they said they would and then the lights came up. I don't know if it was the lack of crowd participation from previous encores, or the fact they were pushing time to barely finish before curfew, but I liked the no-encore set.

 

the portland show was awesome! bad omens was better than expected, spiritbox killed it (the energy during holy roller was insane), and underoath was amazing! the only other time i've seen them was when aaron wasn't in the band, and it was so great to see him playing with them, although his mic was too quiet :( honestly though, spencer's vocals stole the show, he has some amazing stamina, i think there were even a few parts that he sung that aaron normally does, but the way aaron slams on those drums, it's not surprising that it's difficult to do all the vocal parts. i'm also okay with no encore, just a waste of time at this point haha. i did wonder why they brought up the last minute show thing so much, but he did mention that they will try not to skip portland anymore!

 

Now that time has passed, I still think I prefer the Digital Ghost version. The one problem I have with it is that they let the guitars ring out at the end of Pneumonia. I know it's the 'traditional' live thing to do...but to me it takes away from the theme of the song. The way it just ends on the record is perfect.

 

Ended up going to this tour last minute last night. The DTGL / Lost in the Sound material all sounds so perfect live still. I personally love that they still play TOCS material, but you can definitely tell that they don't really want to be playing it.

Aaron is still such an absolute monster drummer

 

makes me wonder how many usual attendants would not go if they stopped playing those songs or only did 1-2. Are there that many people slogging through an otherwise really heavy show to just see reinventing and dangerous?

 

Judging from the crowd reactions to those songs, yes I do believe crowd turnouts would be smaller if those songs were removed from the setlist. The capacity difference between the last two venues UO played was approximately 400, so they did have a bigger turnout for what was a last-minute show. I look elsewhere and they seem much bigger in other markets. I'd love if they'd at least remove Boy Brushed Red from their future setlists. Give at least one more new song some breathing room. The dynamics of their shows would be much more intense with more Voyeurist songs sprinkled with tracks from their other albums.

 

If you look at what the turnout was for them during the Diambiguation cycle without Aaron, I’m sure you can imagine what the turnout would be if they stopped playing stuff from TOCS

 

Underoath seems a bit like Taking Back Sunday in that, while still active and making good music, they're seen as a borderline nostalgia act that people go see to relive their glory "emo" days.

If they removed some of that TOCS material (like TBS removing TAYF), you'd lose some of that casual audience that's just there for the nostalgia trip, but they also don't really make the diehards upset by leaving it in. It's a win-win from an audience perspective: the casuals get to hear the old songs they want to hear, and the die-hards love those songs, too, so they're not going to complain even if they'd prefer to hear more new stuff.

And I'm definitely in that latter camp. I love TOCS, don't get me wrong, but if you told me I could remove it entirely from the setlist and replace it with Voyeurist tracks, I'd sign up in a heartbeat.

 

I'd say a big part of that was Aaron not being there, as well.

 

but I think an equal (if not larger) part of the puzzle there is how much more, well, inaccessible disambiguation was. It’s hard to extrapolate what crowd would look like if they played with Aaron, but didn’t play TOCS songs (or more realistically, as I said in my op, just played 1-2).

I agree there’s a heavy nostalgia factor a la TBS there, but like I said, it seems weird to me that people would go for 2-4 poppier songs and then seemingly suffer through everything after that and some DTGL songs since the rest of the discog is so different. At least at a TBS show you can bop your head through the rest. Idk I get why the band do what they do and I certainly go to some shows for nostalgia too, but I’d hoped them being such an otherwise much heavy band would negate some of that effect. It’s not a common situation where a band gets progressively heavier for 10 years (and bigger and bigger throughout most of it) and yet is so beholden to one completely unlike the rest.

 

Was also a fairly sparse crowd last night. There were definitely a ton of ticket refunds after etid AND spiritbox both dropped. Band handled it well though. Spencer kept thanking the crowd for coming out and apologizing for everything. Totally skipped the encore too and just played all of the songs without stopping.

 

I also bought a super bougie box seat ticket on stubhub a couple hours before doors for only $20 lol, which was honestly super cool to see them like that since I've loved them for almost 18 years now.

 

Curious to those who have been to one of the shows with Spiritbox still on, about how long did the show last? Trying to get a rough estimate as I'm driving about 2 hours for it and I work the next morning lol, preparing myself for what time I'll be getting home at. If doors open at 8 for my show I'm gonna guess 11-11:30-ish? I suppose Spiritbox could still be out for my date on the 20th but we'll see

 

there was a post on fb asking the same thing and multiple answers said 11:30

 

That is a real bummer to hear, makes me worried that people were coming out to see Spiritbox more than UO (which doesn't make any sense to me, but whatever)

 

Had a great time in Boston last night. Underoath sounded great and seemed so excited to be on this tour. There was a camaraderie and brotherhood present between them on stage that I haven't really ever seen them exhibit before. Spencer, in particular, seems to be so happy.

Stray From the Path was fine. They're not my thing at all. Crowd seemed into them, for the most part. Tons of circle pits.

Bad Omens seemed to have a good amount of fans present. I'm not into them, but there were a couple songs off their new album that sounded pretty good. Their vocalist uses some really obvious vocal effects/compression live though and it sort of brings an unnatural polish to their performance that is a little off-putting.

Spiritbox sounded really good. I've only recently started listening to Eternal Blue a bit, but I was overall impressed. Courtney's singing gets a little lost in the mix at times, but her screams come through loud and clear. Not sure if that's her delivery or the way she's mixed, but it wasn't a problem with any other vocalist.

Biggest observation of the night was just how many people were there for Spiritbox over Underoath. I saw WAY more Spiritbox shirts in the crowd, and they seemed to be selling more merch, too. I was standing on the side rail near merch all night and I kept glancing back, and the Spiritbox register (right next to the Underoath register) always had 2-3x more people.

Show was nowhere near sold out, and I'd say a good 10% left after Spiritbox. By the time Underoath got to "Pneumonia", I'd say another 10-15% left. By the time Spencer introduced "Writing on the Walls", there were visible gaps between nearly everyone on the floor, also accounting for a ton of room for a circle pit. It got pretty sparse. I don't know if it's because it was a Monday or what. When I last saw Underoath headline in Mass (December 2018), the placed was packed solid all night.

 

Been hiding from this thread to avoid setlist spoilers, but wanted to pop in and say I'm stoked for my show on Friday.
Hoping to get there early enough to get the tour vinyl.

Been seeing that they've been playing 4 songs from Voyeurist, and while I know they're likely playing Damn Excuses, Hallelujha, and Thorn, I was really hoping for some Numb love in there too.

 

Your mileage may vary, but I was first in line after Underoath's set on Sunday and got the next to last copy of the tour vinyl for that show.