Opening up for the night was the wonderful Lacey Sturm [vocals] and her husband Josh [guitar] with their intimate acoustic set. Lacey is the former singer on the band Flyleaf. With one of those voices that seem to just grip you in your soul, Lacey moved about the stage in her flowing black dress, as husband Josh strummed his guitar. It was a short but emotionally moving set as she talked about her plan to commit suicide as a teen, but God interrupted that plan. As Lacey sings and floats around stage, there is an emotional stir inside oneself. The very moving set included the cover “Roxanne”(Police) and the Flyleaf track “All around me”. 

Following Lacey was the band Starset, founded in Ohio in the year 2013. Starset has a very gallactical vibe, with space-like outfits and light production. The band is composed of Dustin Bates [lead vocals], Ron DeChant [bass, keyboards, backing vocals], Brock Richards [guitars, backing vocals], Adam Gilbert [drums, percussion]. Starset blazed their way around the stage playing tracks including “Trials”, “Manifest”, “Infected”, and “My Demons”. At one point in their set, giant flags were being waved around. The band absolutely crushed it on stage with their pounding rock and amazing light show!

Hitting the stage next was Seether, founded in South Africa in 1999 before the band later moved to the United States. The 4 man group is fronted by Shaun Morgan [vocals, guitar], Dale Stewart [bass], John Humphrey [drums], and Corey Lowery [guitar]. They started their set off with the hit “Gasoline” to get the crowd charged up! With a rock band that’s been around for 2 decades, there are many hits for the crowd to sing along with, and that they did. Other tracks included “Fine Again”, “Broken”, “Country Song”, “Rise Above This”, “Wasteland”, “Fake It” and “Remedy”. Lacey again graced the stage singing Flyleaf‘s“I’m So Sick” with the band. Seether is no stranger to touring and never disappoints when performing live.

Last, but certainly not least, headliner Breaking Benjamin took the stage to bring things home for the night. The Pennsylvania formed rock band has been around since 1999. The group consists of front man Benjamin Burnley [lead vocals, guitar], Jasen Rauch [lead guitar], Keith Wallen [rhythm guitar, backing vocals], Aaron Bruch [bass, backing vocals] and Shaun Foist [drums]. To start things off, they opened with “Blow Me Away” which got the fans gunning from the start. Things took off from there, and the 20 year old band played many of their hits such as “Angels Fall”, “So Cold”, “Failure”, “Until the End”, “Red Cold River”, “Breath”, “Polyamorous”, “Give Me A Sign”, “I Will Not Bow” and “Diary of Jane”. Lacey Sturm once again returned to stage to sing “Dear Agony” with Ben, which was sure to stir up the emotions. Despite the large crowd, lead singer Ben was very interactive with the fans and truly seemed very appreciative that so many people came out to the show. Breaking Benjamin is a blistering hard rock band whose melodic lyrics have a way of relating to many different situations in life. That’s the great thing about this band. They rock hard but can get a person right in the feels as well. It’s not one thing to just go listen to some loud music, you know there is meaning behind the words, which can mean a lot of things to a lot of people and truly change their life or just help them get through. Breaking Benjamin is amazing all around and always a pleasure to see live!