Buses, coaches and trailers circle the block of the Nashville Municipal Auditorium. These city buses keep their engines running so the sections of the queue that snake alongside can feel the extra warmth and exhaust.
There are either two lines or five lines but they all merge and mix with nobody sure of who was already keeping place for others and who was just sidling up to cut down their wait. One line is for general admission, another is who knows because nobody does, they just line up and wind around again and again.
Doors open at 18:00 for the 19:00 show and if you start the walk down into the belly of the city block at 17:30 it’s only under an hour to eventually get through the doors. Wallow in the sun, tan a hide or two and get nothing but an elevated body core temp for inside is where it’s warmer still.
The merchants flogging $40 tees constantly bark out that there are four lines to the queue lining up behind one register. It’s a quick enough exchange and it’s not like you needed to pay for groceries anyway. That’s tomorrow’s problem. If you can walk out of here after the severe dehydration.
Beach Weather are already into the middle of their set as the openers. It’s a round bowl for seating with a mid-sized atmosphere as the buzz of melancholy settles in their sway. Jostling from “Tulips” locks in a hypnotic chorus and the sound strangles itself with the smoke machine as “Sex, Drugs, Etc.” close out the first act.
For Sleeping With Sirens it’s all a blur of reverb and feeling the chest become a lump as the insides begin to liquefy. The sound is punk with a tinge of that time when everyone is reeking of body spray to hide the armpits stewing a brew. Your face dripping in eyeliner and mascara as “Leave it All Behind” tears itself into “If You Can’t Hang” and we’re left in a state of agitation and not wanting to do anything much at all.
The air conditioning inside the Nashville Municipal Auditorium seems to only run with a slight breeze for the outer rings of the stadium. For those in line for merch, or those wanting to use the toilets, it’s enough to notice that there’s a difference in the air. Step into the actual arena and it’s time to start slipping on all the pools of sweat, grog and ever present vials of flavoured vape juice. The heat and humidity only climbs. Teasing from the rafters, beams of air ducts looking down and turned off. Someone passes out in the mosh pit.
Curtains billow on stage with album emblems, a whisper into a head fallen off by screaming. It’s a drop and the band is out in force, the tops of the lungs can’t get any higher. Their sound pry the legs from the seated position. Struck with numbness because you can only sit for so long jamming your knees into the back of the seats in front.
Internals are basically goop in the bridge of Pierce The Veil. With all that bass, the reverb never ends. It keeps looping back to shake out the bone marrow. There is no place to hide, and then you hear “Emergency Contact” and it sounds warmly familiar as you tear down that facade. Death becomes us. Look for the one you want holding your corpse as the acoustic slows it down with “She Makes Dirty Words Sound Pretty”. One of the rarer times you can hear as the sound mix mellows out.
Pierce the Veil is on and off with quick breaks for 90 minutes, in two acts, starting at 21:00. The riffs subsume, clawing at walls with “Disasterology” from the shadows of the encore. “King for a Day” closes it with out of pocket energy and with no limits on vocals.
And we’re done for the night. Left there shimmering back into the pale sweaty embrace of wrought angst and amps that won’t let you breathe one full breath.
Somehow here after a cursory listen of The Jaws of Life at the 4 June 2025 leg of the “I Can’t Hear You” Tour at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.
Reviewed on Sunday, 8 June 2025