The Trinity of Terror Tour rolled through Southern California on Wednesday night and set the YouTube Theater ablaze with four full hours of metal mayhem courtesy of Motionless in White, Ice Nine Kills, Black Veil Brides, and special guests Atreyu. It was pound for pound one of the best metal shows I have seen this year and fired on all cylinders in front of a packed house in Inglewood. This show was special and the tour separated itself positively from others in the metal genre this year. Let’s dig into the devilish details.
As 2022 is finally coming to an end, its easy to look back upon the shows I have attended throughout the year and make judgements as to which ones made the grade and others which may have fell short of my lofty expectations. While live music in general is trending up, some tours took it to a whole new level this year. The Trinity of Terror was just such a tour and quite honestly packaged what might have been some of the best metal performances I have seen this year. Let me explain.
Typically, a headliner may bring out a solid band on tour and then fill in with a few local bands as filler. I have nothing against these types of lineups, but they leave something to be desired and quite frankly never hit the mark. And when you analyze it from a fan perspective, many just avoid those bands and make their way into the arena just prior to the main acts. The Trinity of Terror Tour was the complete opposite. All of the named bands are spectacular in their own right, and it was awesome to see a near packed house before the first act even took the stage. Incredible.
Another cool feature of this tour is that the three main acts making up the trinity (Motionless in White, Ice Nine Kills, Black Veil Brides) rotated headlining duties throughout the tour. This spiced it up for fans and allowed each to perform different sets based on positioning. And because many of these bands have crossover fans with the others in the lineup, it made perfect sense to me as well as the thousands of others who dropped in to see the show at YouTube. The show flow on Wednesday night was incredible, and the overall energy level rarely dropped below 10 over the four hours I was rocking out.
So, who took the prize for best overall performance on Wednesday night? Well, let me first say that all four bands were truly incredible. I don’t say that to be politically correct, but truly mean it as someone who lives and breathes live music. All of the bands were unique in their own way and found avenues to differentiate their performances from the others on the bill. That said, a tip of the hat goes to Ice Nine Kills for what I felt was the performance of the evening. For me it was their incredible sonics combined with a nonstop horror show consisting of amazing backdrops, costume changes, and the occasional chopping off of required body parts. Ice Nine Kills captured me from beginning to end and that’s rare in my line of work. Well done!
ATREYU
BLACK VEIL BRIDES
ICE NINE KILLS
MOTIONLESS IN WHITE
