Alesana hits the road again for part 3 of their Trilogy Tour playing their album Confessions in its entirety for the first time ever.
Kicking the night off was the show’s first opener Half Heard Voices. Immediately bringing the energy to 100 as fans started piling into the venue. Once their set began, they performed songs from their newest album Moon Burial, which they just released last month. The band’s energy for the night came through with how they got the crowd jumping, and moshing. They thanked the crowd and went towards the merch booth by the end of their set to meet some fans.
Next up for the night were second opener Vampires Everywhere, who fit the vampire aesthetic perfectly. With the constant red lighting and smoke filling the stage. Though the band had their dark aesthetic going on, that didn’t stop them from doing fun covers of “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry and “The Hills” by The Weeknd, with their own little metal twist on the iconic pop songs of course. And performing their recent singles and hits from their older albums as well. The energy from the first opener to the second opener hadn’t gone down and the crowd’s energy just kept getting louder, to the point where a fan even jumped over the barricade to rip off the band’s setlist.
The third opener for the night was LIMBS, who also joined Alesana’s on their last tour. mainly performing songs from their 2022 album Coma Year and two newer unreleased songs titled “See Yourself” and “Paranoid,” which have already proved as hits. The band killed it with their amazing vocals and instrumentals, kept the pit moving, and got the crowd ready for what was next.
Some of the band members came on stage just to test out their instruments and that alone got the crowd jumping and screaming at the top of their lungs. But after a while the band went backstage to keep prepping, leaving the crowd impatiently waiting for the show to start, but after a few minutes of waiting, the lights went out and Alesana took the stage performing their 2015 Confessions album. The band came out with huge smiles on their faces. Starting with the first track on the album, “It Was a Dark and Stormy Night” and followed by the rest of the album’s tracks in order.
Song after song fans were screaming, jumping, moshing, and shaking the barricade to the point where it felt it would come off its hinges. The band members jumped from side to side across the stage with screaming vocalist, Dennis Lee, jumping onto the screen of fans who were recording, reaching into the audience, and even leaning on me onto the crowd with guitarist, Jake Campbell, playing over him, and lead vocalist, Shawn Milke, was able to put on amazing vocals despite the amount of jumping and movement he was doing. It’s safe to say that all members loved getting their turn with a camera. Bassist, Shane Crump, even took a few turns posing for me. He’d even go around to fans at the barricade pouring water over himself and shaking the water off his hair onto the fans below.
I’m sure many of the emo and scene kids who attended the show got everything they wanted and more, as the band put on a show to remember.
As the band’s set was coming to an end with performing the 11-track album, they ended with the last track, “Catharsis”. As they left the stage, the crowd almost immediately chanted “One more song.” with fans even shouting for them to play other hit songs from different albums. After a while, the band came back out to speak with the crowd a bit, share some laughs, and then eventually announced their encore song, “Fatima Rusalka”. A song off of The Annabel Trilogy Part III: Confessions. Afterward, they thanked Austin for the show and even met some fans after.After 20 years of Alesana, you can sense how much love and energy they still put into their shows, performances, and fans of course. Alesana has marked their spot in emo history and their fans know how to show up for them, and the band knows as well. The band’s current tour stops on August 18th and picks back up on October 17th till October 27th. The band will even make a stop to perform their album The Emptiness at When We Were Young Fest later this year.
I am a photographer, musician, and cosplayer, based in Austin! I spend a lot of time traveling around for events, and am constantly creating things, listening to music, playing bass guitar, or finding new hobbies to indulge in. I love being surrounded by music, and you can almost always catch me listening to some emo or pop-punk music.
