Rise Against’s Spring 2012 tour made a stop here, at the UCF Arena, January 21, bringing along with them A Day to Remember and the Menzingers.
Rise Against, a punk band formed in Chicago, began achieving mainstream success as early as 2004, and have released 3 albums that went gold in the United States, and platinum in Canada. The band is known for being extremely politically active, supporting animal rights, and for being both straightedge and vegan.
The show opened with the Menzingers, a punk rock band based out of Philadelphia, before A Day to Remember took the stage, bringing with them props galore. Besides opening up with strobe lights and smoke plums for their hit, “The Down Fall of Us All,” they brought with them plenty of toilet paper to us as streamers, beach balls, T-shirt guns, and hundreds of balloons. The highlight of ADTR’s prop use, however, was the giant, clear plastic ball that lead singer Jeremy McKinnon climbed into. He then ran over the crowd, at one point even flipping within the ball. The band brought with them some serious messages about doing what you want to with your life, but also encouraged concert goers to have fun, at one point requesting audience members to ‘crowd surf on someone crowd surfing.’
After leaving the stage, vertical screens were revealed to set the stage for Rise Against. These screens aired powerful images throughout the performance, helping to convey the often heavy lyrics to some of their hit songs, such as “Survivor Guilt,” “Collapse (Post-Amerika),” and “Make It Stop (September’s Children).”
