Carnival of Madness Tour feat Theory of a Deadman – REVIEW

The Carnival of Madness Tour feat. Theory of a Deadman came to 3 Sisters Park in Chillicothe, Illinois. With them on this tour came Alter Bridge, Black Stone Cherry, Adelitas Way, and Emphatic. You can check out our review after the break.

Driving up to 3 Sisters Park in central Illinois on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, I just knew I was in for a good, but hot, day of music! You had to drive down a dirt and gravel path to get to the parking lot of the venue, but why does that mater when you’re going to see some awesome rock bands? It doesn’t in my mind. When I arrived the line was already at least 500 people long. It was kind of nice being able to bypass all of them to pick-up my tickets for the show. I felt kind of band for everyone who had bought advance physical tickets because they would have been able to walk right in if they had bought their tickets at the door or if they were on the guest list. Walking into the venue, I instantly noticed all of the tour buses and production semis parked around the outdoor stage. I believe there were 5 tour buses and 3 semis, pretty crazy right? The venue already was occupied by a couple hundred people buying their first beers of the night, checking out band merch and eagerly awaiting the first band of the tour to hit the stage.

Speak of the first band, Emphatic, hit the stage about 10 minutes after I walked in and they made me glad I showed up to the show early. These guys hit the stage with a ton of energy to help wake the crowd up from their heat comas. The only way to describe the band’s music is that it is rock, nothing more, nothing less and the audience didn’t seem to have a problem with it! The song that really caught my ears was their current single, “Bounce”, because the lyrics are so catchy that you couldn’t help but sing along. They started off the show right and got me excited to see the rest of the bands.

The next band to hit the stage is a band I was pretty familiar with, Adelitas Way. I had seen them at a rock festival earlier this summer and they impressed me then. They didn’t disappoint this time either. The combination of their lead vocalist Rick and the back-up vocals from rhythm guitarist Keith worked great together. Their voices are very different and that is what makes them work so well together! The band played all of their hit singles, including their “Invisible” and “Sick”. Also, I thought it was funny that their single announced before their last song that their roadie would be in the crowd looking for good looking girls to invite back to the band barbeque after the show. It was a pretty blunt way to let the audience know that hot girls were in need, haha. I got a good chuckle out of that!

Black Stone Cherry performed next and they were easily the most energetic band to take the stage thus far. Their southern hard rock sound was refreshing to hear since it put BSC into a different category than the rest of the tour. Some of my personal favorites and coincidentally enough, crowd favorites, was their new single “Blame It On The Boom Boom” and their single before that “White Trash Millionaire”. More impressive than anything else in the their set was how much the band’s lead guitarist, Ben Wells, moved around on stage. I think his feet actually touched every inch of the stage and he did it all while playing flawlessly.

By this time, the sun had started to set and was a perfect time for Alter Bridge to take the stage. They band was welcomed by an enormous amount of cheers from the audience, which was now about 2000 people strong. Not gonna lie, I was one of the people cheering. How could you not get stoked to see this band live? After the first song in their set, the singer, Myles Kennedy, tossed his pick into the audience. I lost sight of it because of the blinding white lights on stage, but the next thing I know something hit me in the shoulder and it was the pick. I picked it up and saw that it was signed by Myles, at least I think that’s his signature. I really appreciate it when bands go out of their way to make the experience more memorable, even if it is as simple as throwing your picks and drum sticks to the audience. The band played most of their big hits and everyone in the audience seemed to enjoy and rock out to EVERY song! Before the last song, both the band’s guitarists Myles and Mark tested their skills to see who could play a better solo, I think it was a tie, but this definitely reassured everyone in the audience just how talented they are.

Now, the time that everyone had been waiting the whole day for. Theory of a Deadman was about to take the stage. By now the sun was down and the temperature had dropped to about 70 degrees, which made it a perfect night for a rock concert! Tyler Connolly and the rest of TOAD took the stage to a roaring crowd, even louder than the crowd was for Alter Bridge, which I didn’t think was possible. Tyler was in control of the crowd throughout the entire hour long set. He even played “Tyler Says” with the crowd, which is basically his take on “Simon Says” and the crowd looked like there were in Tyler’s trance. The band played a bunch of their songs from their newest album “The Truth Is…”, which was released last month. Of course, they also mixed in all of their big hits to satisfy the crowd. To my surprise and to the surprise of most of the crowd, they didn’t bullshit the crowd like most bands and do a fake encore. They just simply said this is our last song, played the song, and then the concert was over. It actually made their set stand out in my mind since most headlining acts have an encore built into their set.

All of the bands that played blew me away, so you definitely should give them all a listen if you are not a fan already! Also, since this was the first date of Carnival of Madness Tour, you definitely still have time to catch them on the rest of the tour. This is a concert you shouldn’t miss!

Information about the review…
Tour: Carnival of Madness Tour 2011 feat Theory of a Deadman and Alter Bridge
Bands: Theory of a Deadman, Alter Bridge, Black Stone Cherry, Adelitas Way, and Emphatic
Date: August 14, 2011
Venue: 3 Sisters Park in Chillicothe, IL