I just returned from the Stronger Than Hell show at Bogart's in Cincy and my ears are still buzzing from the total awesomeness of it all. I skipped The Famine, Advent and Oh, Sleeper because I had to work but from what I heard they rawked.I was able to park on the street and get inside just in time for Living Sacrifice, the original Christian metalcore band. They were awesome but not way awesome...that title, my friends, is reserved for the greatest Christian band EVER...of course I'm speaking of Demon Hunter.
DH hit the stage around 9:30 to plenty of smoke, great lights and a clip from "300" ("Tonight we dine in hell!"). They ripped into "Storm the Gates of Hell", "Lead Us Home" and "Ribcage." All in all they only played for about an hour and fifteen but Ryan Clark hardly spoke to the crowd and that's fine--less talk, more rock.
The Setlist (if I remember it correctly was):
Intro (Music and clip from "300")
1 Storm the Gates of Hell
2 Lead Us Home
3 Ribcage
4 I Am You
5 Carry Me Down
6 Fading Away
7 The Soldier Song
8 Follow the Wolves
9 Undying
10 Infected
11 A Thread of Light (w/ Bruce Fitzhugh of Living Sacrifice)
12 My Heartstrings Come Undone
Encore:
13 The Flame that Guides Us Home/Not I
14 Not Ready to Die
The band was pretty tight and the crowd was into it. As a side note, it was cool to go to a Christian metal show where only one dude was thrown out and one carried out from the mosh pit...the count is much higher at secular gigs.
My only complaint is that they ran out of tour shirts...always overstock dudes!!! By the time I hit the merch table all the tour shirts were gone (at least those in adult sizes!). Well, that and they didn't play "Through the Black" but everyone can complain about "the song" not being played.
Still, sad times. Overall, however, totally awesome as nothing has been awesome before!!!
