Between the Buried and Me with The Acacia Strain at The Underground in Charlotte
I'm absolutely guilty of a joyous pleasure: attending concerts having never listened to the artists before. This was one of those nights. It could not have turned out better in my opinion. Coming off a rough week to a well established back to back band full of guttural bands with a well established fan base was just the treat I needed.
The Acacia Strain opened the night. This might have been one of the first time I saw so many of the opener's merch being worn in the crowd. Both the crowd and I were enraptured the entire time. I was surprised at how tame the crowd was for the first few songs compared to how they ended the set and it turns out it was because several live debuts made their way to the beginning of their setlist. 'Pillar of Salt,' 'Bog Walker,' and 'Basin of Vows' were all songs that had me absolutely hooked and caught up. By the end of the setlist there were crowd surfers keeping security busy and the energy high. By the end, frontman, Vincent Bennett, was giving much needed reprieve to the heat by spraying the crowd with water and even engaging crowd surfers, as shown below.
After a brief break, Between the Buried and Me came on stage and immediately had the crowd in an uproar. While I had the pleasure of a photo pit to take pictures from, that didn't stop me from being jostled by the crowd over the barriers or even having to shuffle away from security as they caught crowd surfers that took the first chance they could get. While I was only able to shoot for the first ten minutes, it felt like a solid 30 minutes due to the energy of both the band and the crowd. The crowd simply couldn't get enough. Starting with their own live debut of 'Monochrome,' Between the Buried and Me came out with a bang and had me caught up from the start. Crowd surfers started immediately after once 'The Double Helix of Extinction' started. Continuing the high energy with 'Revolution in Limbo' and 'Fix the Error,' the band brought their all to night 2 at this venue. With a guest singer, who I'm assuming is someone's son, joining for one of the songs, the energy just got more intense as the night went on. They decided to close the night out with a few more live debuts of 'Turbulent,' 'Sfumato,' and 'Human is Hell' the band definitely left me in awe and the crowd happy and in awe. It might have been the venue and their amazing security or it might have been the crowd but this was without a doubt one of the most enjoyable concerts I have shot in a while.
