The Dead Masquerade Tour

The Dead Masquerade Tour 2011
Featuring: Escape the Fate, Alesana, Motionless In White, Get Scared & Drive A

Venue: The Rave
Location: Milwaukee, WI
Date: 2/19/2011
Stage: The Rave Hall
Capacity: 1500

Drive A
From: Los Angeles, CA

Bruno Mascolo -Vocals, Guitar
Jason Nott- Guitar, Vocals
Cody Root-Drums
Taylor Knowles-Bass Guitar

Drive A started off the night at the Rave. They succeeded at warming up the crowd for the night to come. The mosh pits started early and kept on going straight through the night. Drive A brings forth a raw and unpolished sound, and I can detect a hint of the Ramones in their music style. What you hear live is pretty similar to what you will hear on their upcoming debut album “Loss of Desire”. I was ultimately impressed with Drive A’s song ‘Can’t Sleep It Off’; catchy beat along with lyrics that you can easily sing along to. Everyone knows that there are days when saying (or in this case singing) fuck you just makes everything better. During the song “Take a Side”, Drive A successfully got Milwaukee to part sides, left and right… then once the song started everyone made a mad crazy dash to the center to mosh. It was impressive to see everyone willing to have a bit of fun with the opening act. After Drive A’s set you might have seen Bruno walking around greeting people and selling their 4 song EP titled “The Marked Man”.

Get Scared
From: Utah
Time: 6:50 PM – 7:25 PM

Nicholas Matthews (Vocals)
Johnny B (Guitar)
Bradley Lloyd Iverson (Guitar)
Dan Edwards - (Drums)

Get Scared is an infectiously catchy band. Nicholas Matthews has an alluring vocal range and incorporates a bit of screaming into the music. Get Scared announced the song “Fail” as a new song from an upcoming album titled “Best Kind of Mess” due out this year. The last song of the set “If She Only Knew Voodoo Like I Do” was ultimately a crowd favorite. Voodoo has an enticing sound & beat that draws one to move and dance. But don’t put aside the head banging, there is room for that too!

Set List:
-Deepest Cut
-Sarcasm
-You Are What You Are
-Fail
-Lock the Doors
-If Only She Knew Voodoo Like I Do

Motionless in White
From: Pennsylvania
Time: 7:45 PM – 8:10 PM

Christopher "Chris Motionless" Cerulli – Vocals
Joshua Balz – Keyboards/Programming
TJ Bell – Guitar/Vocals
Ricky "Horror" Olson – Bass
Angelo Parente – Drums
Ryan Sitkowski – guitar

The stage lights emitted a red color as Motionless in White took the stage. Chris stood on his platform, greeted Milwaukee and then screamed “What the Fuck?” thus beginning the first song of their set “Immaculate Misconception”. These boys get the best response for an onstage question. Chris asks the crowd who has seen the movie twilight and a there were a few hands & a few screams (to be honest the screams were mainly from girls). Chris continues saying fuck twilight and announces the 2nd song “We Only Come Out At Night”. Chris did say that someday he might not get a friendly response from saying that. Throughout the night Motionless in White interacted with the crowd and got a great response from them. Chris tried to get the Milwaukee crowd to do some circular pit action, but one should know that the infamous circular pits are famous in the Eagles Ballroom; the Rave Hall isn’t quite as spacious as the ballroom upstairs. For their final song of the night “Abigail” Chris stage dove into the crowd, which seemed to be the thing to do tonight.

Set List:
- Immaculate Misconception
- We Only Come Out At Night
- Creatures
- Ghost in the Mirror
-Puppets (the First Snow)
-Abigail

Alesana
From: Raleigh, NC
Time: 8:30 PM – 9:10PM

Jeremy Bryan – drums
Shane Crump – bass
Dennis Lee – vocals
Shawn Milke – rhythm guitar,Vocals
Patrick Thompson – lead guitar
Alex Torres – guitar

Alesana came out on stage wearing black suit jackets with white ties. The crowd greeted them with screams; obviously the crowd was anxiously awaiting these guys. By the end of Alesana’s first song, I could understand why; they were an energetic bunch with the stage movement and guitar flips. Alesana has an interesting sound that alternates melodic vocals and screaming. The stage presence of Alesana was excellent. Though they did have some technical difficulties throughout the set, primarily in the beginning with some sound and feedback issues, but they just went with it. As they tried to fix things they interacted with the crowd. I give props to singer Dennis Lee, I have never seen someone put a microphone in their mouth and still continue to scream and sing the lyrics of a song, I admit it was interesting, and Dennis kept up with the stage diving and jumped in the crowd too.

Set List:
- Curse of the Virgin Canvas
-The Artist
-The Murderer
-Hymn for the Shameless
-The Thespian
-Annabel

Escape the Fate
From Las Vegas, Nevada
Time: 9:45 PM – 10:45 PM

Craig Mabbitt – Lead Vocals
Max Green – Bass, backing vocals
Bryan Money – guitars, backing vocals, synthesizers, keys
Robert Ortiz – Drums

There was a 35 minute wait for Escape the Fate to take the stage. When Escape the Fate finally decided to take the stage technically their first song of the night was the 1st track “Choose Your Fate” off of their self-titled album “Escape the Fate”. The anticipation for the band to get on stage was increasing as the intro was a minute thirty seconds. The crowd started to chant along with the intro’s words “Choose your fate”. The stage lights flicker and flood the stage, finally this time, Escape the Fate is on stage and break into the song “The Massacre”. After the first song, Escape the Fate greeted Milwaukee, and told them that tonight filling in for Max is none other than TJ from Motionless in White. I applaud TJ for playing two sets tonight! The crowd was totally enamored with Escape the Fate, there were so many people singing along to the lyrics and moshing and jumping it was impressive. Craig announced the 4th song “Issues” by saying “Sing it loud, sing it proud…if you know the words”. The guitar solo was a favorite of mine during the song “Bad Blood”. The night ended with a two song encore.

Set List:
- Massacre
-10 Miles Wide
-The Flood
-Issues
-Something
-Bad Blood
-Day of Reckoning
-Zombie Dance
-You are so Beautiful
-Gorgeous Nightmare
-Situations
Encore:
-This War is Ours
-The Aftermath

The Night Out

There are definitely nights when going out the movie "The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human" come to mind.

1. The Initiation:

(this is where the couple says hello...the male tries to impress the female with his suave/charismatic moves, in return the female accepts the males initiation and dances with him, blowing off the guy she was just dancing with.)


2. The Dance:

(the initiation is over... which means don't hold back on the moves)


3. The Gift:

(this is the male's appreciation for the female dancing with him. extra bonus points because he made this out of a napkin... which she later accidentally drops in the snow)