Concerts – 2025 December

Each of the four concerts attended was quite special, with anniversary celebrations, special sets, debuts of new songs, and fun cover renditions.

Headed west to Worcester, Massachusetts to catch the “No Fear For Tomorrow North American Tour” at the Palladium, where Cattle Decapitation is performing ‘Death Atlas’ (2019 – Metal Blade Records) in its entirety plus “A Photic Doom,” “We Eat Our Young,” and “Scourge of the Offspring” as an encore. With a stacked tour bill, of Aborted, Frozen Soul, and Tribal Gaze, it was an extreme genre mega-show. Though Tribal Gaze had van troubles and could not make it in time to play.

O’Brien’s Pub would host, possibly its last before construction, Grayskull Booking Anniversary Show. This year, Aaron would be celebrating twelve years of booking concerts in the Boston area. For this anniversary, Alreckque, Dwelley, Karare Steve, and Mollusk would shake the room with riffs.

Saddest Day, a new music and art festival curated by North Shore heavyweights Converge, would take place at Roadrunner in Boston, Massachusetts. The inaugural installment featured Wormwood, Stress Positions, Year of the Knife, Soul Glo, Full of Hell, The Hope Conspiracy, Coalesce, and Touché Amoré. Converge would perform a 23-song set, debuting the title track of their forthcoming album, ‘Love Is Not Enough’ right out of the gates, blasting through favorites and deep cuts spanning their discography. Full of Hell joined in for “Axe To Fall,” they played “Towing Jehovah” for the first time since 2004, “Conduit” for the first time since 2008, “Lonewolves” for the first time since 2011, and closed with “The Saddest Day.”

Coalesce would perform three new songs, and were joined by Stephen Brodsky (Cave In) for “Wild Ox Moan” the by Jeremy Bolm (Touché Amoré) for a Minor Threat cover of “Seeing Red.” Full of Hell would do a Melvins cover of “Oven” at the end of their intense set that included “Crawling Back to God,” “Doors to Mental Agony,” “Thundering Hammers,” and “Bone Coral and Brine.” Had a malfunction right at the beginning of The Hope Conspiracy, but (HUGE) thanks to The Rev and Hiliarie for helping and identifying the problem. With a little tweak, I was back in the game.

Back to the Palladium for the third and final leg of Silverstein’s worldwide “25 Years Of Noise” tour, with Thursday, Free Throw and Bloom. I arrived a bit late, only catching the latter two bands. Thursday was viciously beautiful, though they did not play “Paris in Flames” to my dismay. Silverstein are playing songs spanning their entire career for this tour, the setlist included “Smile in Your Sleep,” “The Afterglow,” “Infinite,” two covers “You Gotta Stay Positive” by Good Clean Fun and transitioned into a snippet of a My Chemical Romance cover of “Helena” at the end of “Worlds Apart,” with an encore of an acoustic version of “My Heroine,” “Smashed Into Pieces,” and “Bleeds No More.”

Cattle Decapitation