Silverstein Rocks The Fillmore With 25 Years Of Noise On Saturday Night

25 years ago, as we were on our flip phones preparing for Y2K, Silverstein was busting out of Canada ready to take on the world. Marking this milestone, as well as supporting the release of 2 albums, Antibloom and Pink Moon, the boys from the Great White North have embarked on a world wide tour and made a stop at the Fillmore Minneapolis on Saturday night. It was a night full of rock, as Silverstein was joined by Thursday, Bloom and Free Throw.

First up, all the way from Sidney, Australia, Bloom started the evening jacking the energy level up to eleven. Featuring Jono Hawkey fronting the band, with guitarists Jarod McLaren and Oliver Butler, Andrew Martin on bass and Jack Van Viliet on the drum kit. The sound was much more mature than the appearance of the band. Having recently released there sophomore album The Light We Chase, the set had lots of new stuff for the crowd to devour. Songs had a variety of fast and heavy, with a ballad thrown in for good measure.

Next up was Nashville based Free Throw. They came out rocking, with a tight, energetic flow. This can probably be attributed to most of the band having played together for over a decade and all being masterful musicians. The contrast between their song names alluding to Pokemon themes, yet referencing substance abuse, interconnections gone wrong and appearance issues displays a clever irony. Frontman Cory Castro even rocks some Pokemon ink.

Next up on the stage and who could be a headliner in their own right, strait out of the Garden State of New Jersey, were Thursday. While both Silverstein and Thursday stared life on Victory Records back in the day, they had never toured together and frontman Geoff Rickey hyped Silverstein during their set. Walking out on stage Rickey kicked off the evening giving a nod to diversity by welcoming all to the show. The band then kicked in the afterburners and opened the set with a ton of intensity. Thursday dug deep into the bands catalogue, with “Jet Black New Year” and “The Lovesong Writer” as some of the highlights. They also played one of their new singles “Application For Release From The Dream”. They have released a couple of new singles, so hopefully a album is in the works.

The packed Fillmore erupted when the lights went down after the Free Throw set break. Prior to the band coming on stage, a video showing footage of the band spanning their 25 year career was shown on a screen on the back of the stage. The crowd ramped up the energy even more as the band filtered onto the stage. Frontman Shane Told grabbed the mic as the band broke into a couple of new tunes “Negative Space” and “Drain The Blood”. The band appeared to be taking the audience on a chronological trip through their catalogue, starting with the newest stuff, then hitting 2020’s “Infinite”. They tried to hit at least one cut off of each of their releases apart from, I believe, Short Songs. You could tell the crowd was hard core fans, as the deeper the set went, the deeper the tracs went and the louder the response was when the tunes were performed. Shane reminisced about the times he had played in the Twin Cities. The band went deeper and harder as the set progressed, but the moshing and the crowd surfing held at a steady pace. “The End” brought a brief acoustic interlude, but the band came back with a vengeance with “Your Sword Vs My Dagger” and “Smile In Your Sleep’ to close out the set. The encore started with Told back out front with the acoustic to play “My Heroine”. The band came back on to exploding confetti cannons, closing out the night with “Smashed Into Pieces” and “Bleeds No More” that had the Fillmore reverberating with the crowd singing along.

While it’s called The 25 Years Of Noise tour, rest assured there was no noise Saturday night, just hard rocking good time rock and roll.

Photos by Vito Ingerto