5 Bands That Absolutely Killed It At Louder Than Life 2023
We had the pleasure of experiencing Louisville's very own Louder Than Life Fest last weekend. Along with 180,000 rock and metal fans, we gathered to enjoy North America's largest rock festival! After spending 4 days watching some of the best bands worldwide, here are our 5 favorites of the weekend in no particular order.
Fever 333
Formed in California in 2017, the 4 piece band rocked the Revolver stage on Friday for an exciting 45-minute set. Fever 333 puts on a rambunctious show that is bursting with rebellious energy and features physical stunts such as huge jumps off of speakers on stage. By the end of the show, lead singer Jason Butler had climbed on top of the soundboard tent while continuing to scream vocals. In a rowdy finish to the band's aggressive set, Jason Butler lept from the sound tent into the crowd and crowd-surfed his way back towards the stage.
Fever 333 mixes multiple genres that Loudmouths (Louder Than Life festival-goers) tend to love, such as rap-rock, hardcore, metalcore, and of course metal. With contagious live energy and music that you can't help but enjoy, Fever 333 is a band you don't want to miss seeing! Watch the video of Fever 333's live antics here.
Godsmack
One of Friday night's 3 headliners, Godsmack put on an incredible show that attracted long-time fans of the band as well as new listeners who may not have been fans of Godsmack before seeing them live. The show was filled with pyro and lighting that matched along with the band's incredibly tight sound. The well-established band's show showcases their signature grungey, nu-metal sound that fits in perfectly with Louder Than Life's fanbase.
Godsmack's excellent crowd interaction created connections with fans and had the crowd moving and chanting along with their music. The band's professionalism and experience was on full display during their 1 hour and 10-minute set.
Nail Bite
One of the youngest and freshest up-and-coming bands to play Louder Than Life this year, Nail Bite managed to do something that seemed impossible–they drew a main stage-sized crowd to the side stage on Thursday midday. One of the most unique acts we saw all weekend, Nail Bite started off their set with an intense dubstep build-up and breakdown that launched into their music that mixes a multitude of genres with heavy metal.
Competing with Coheed and Cambria on the main stage, Nail Bite drew a huge crowd of people that were moshing, circle pitting, crowd surfing, and even having walls of death! The band completely blew us away with their musical potential and ability to absolutely pack Louder Than Life's side stage. There is no doubt that Nail Bite will be playing mainstage soon.
Falling In Reverse
One of Saturday's main stage headliners, Falling In Reverse brought an energy-filled show to Louisville Kentucky's festival grounds. The hour-long set was filled with surprises, funny moments, and of course, excellent music. Falling in Reverse showed their sense of humor as they spent minutes splitting the entire crowd for what we assumed was going to be an intense wall of death before the band comically played Smash Mouth's "All Star" as fans sang along. Lead vocalist, Ronnie Radke ran around the stage with inspiring amounts of energy and threw the microphone dozens of feet into the air before catching it (and dropping it) a few times.
The highlight of the show to us was the band's latest original song, "Watch The World Burn". The rap-infused metal song showcased the band's various musical influences and spot-on rapid live rapping skills. Falling in Reverse played the end breakdown of "Watch The World Burn" 3 separate times with the first being normal, then opera, and finally in a slowed-down tempo with extreme gutturals and screaming vocals. The massively popular modern band showcased their incredible technical show and entertaining personality that fans love, leaving a lasting impact on much of the crowd.
Sleep Token
One of the most anticipated sets of the weekend, Sleep Token has rocketed in popularity over the last year, and the band's 50-minute set started just as night began to fall, matching the band's mysterious atmosphere. With all band members shrouded in masks and cloaks and a stage filled with smoke and backlighting, Sleep Token creates a cult-like aesthetic that introduces a vibey sound that mixes extremely catchy vocal melodies, piano composure, djent instrumentals, and intense screaming and metal sections.
With a timeslot competing directly with classic metal band Pantera, Sleep Token filled their stage body-to-body in a fashion that showed just how popular they have become. Sleep Token's lack of crowd interaction and speaking doesn't take away from their performance and adds to the enigma behind the band keeping the performance entirely about the music. One of our favorite parts about Sleep Token was the funky dancing that Vessel (lead vocalist) used to move around the stage as well as the other member's strange but entertaining movements that gave fans plenty to look at during the show. When the band's breakthrough song "The Summoning" came on the crowd erupted into cheers. As the song's outro was played an insane amount of people were singing along, giving us (and many others) goosebumps.
Louder Than Life was all around an incredibly run festival that acts as a role model for how all music festivals should be handled. All of the bands mentioned today put on performances that thoroughly impressed us and we recommend seeing all of them live at some point!
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