Atreyu is a metalcore/alternative metal band from Orange County California formed in 1998. The band name comes from a character in the book “The Never Ending Story”. The band members are: Vocalist Alex Varkatzas; lead guitar Dan Jacobs; rhythm guitar Travis Miguel; bassist Marc McKnight and on drums/vocals Brandon Saller.
The bands’ latest tour is in support of their seventh studio album, “In Our Wake” released on October 12, 2018. The popular single from this album, “The Time is Now”; was released in September, playing regularly on XM Radios’ Octane channel, and also has a music video.
The show at Anaheim House of Blues was the final night on the current fall tour. The show was high energy with the band expertly performing songs from past and present. The set list included my favorites from their 2007 “Lead Sails Paper Anchor” album: Blow, Becoming the Bull and Falling Down; and from the new album, The Time is Now, Anger Left Behind and the title track In Our Wake. Other songs I recall were The Crimson and The Remembrance Ballad from the 2004 album “The Curse.” Their cover of the Bon Jovi hit “You Give Love a Bad Name” at the end of the show was incredible! The house was packed, and all were enjoying the show. I can see this band moving into larger venues in the very near future.
Atreyu is in the lineup for the upcoming “Shiprocked” event on the Carnival cruise ship Valor in January 2019. I am confident we will hear more from them, and that they will schedule more dates in continued support of their latest release. Hit up their website latest for the latest information at www.atreyuofficial.com.
Supporting acts for the show included Sleep Signals, Ice Nine Kills and Memphis May Fire. Unfortunately, I did not get to see Sleep Signals; I arrived as Ice Nine Kills took the stage. Ice Nine Kills (INK), was formed in Boston Massachusetts in 2002. They were originally a Ska-Punk band, but are now metal. I could definitely hear the punk influence throughout their set. The current members are: Spencer Charnas on lead vocals, keyboards, synthesizer; Justin DeBlieck, lead guitar, co-lead vocals, keyboards, programming, production, piano; Justin Morrow on bass, backing vocals; Ricky Armellino on rhythm guitar, co-lead vocals and Patrick Galante on drums/percussion. Their performance was high energy, and soon there was crowd surfing and a mosh pit formed. The band released their fifth studio album on October 5, 2018 “The Silver Scream”. This is a theme-based album with all the songs having horror film inspirations. The single from this album, A Grave Mistake, (inspired by the movie The Crow) is currently in the top 10 “Biguns” on XM radio Octane channel, last week it was number one.
Memphis May Fire was next up on stage, and they were fantastic! They are a metalcore band and were a very good match to open for Atreyu. This band is from Nashville, Tennessee and was formed in 2006. Current band members are: Vocalist Matty Mullins; lead guitarist Kellen McGregor, bass guitarist Cory Elder, and drummer Jake Garland. The most recent album is “Broken” just released on November18, 2018. The single released from this album is called The Old Me, and it has become my current favorite song. I was in awe when they performed it live. I was not familiar with any other songs they played, but I honestly enjoyed all of them and am going to buy the album. I would definitely recommend seeing them play, and I hope there will be a tour in the spring/summer months, considering their new album is so recently released.
Roxie / BackStage360
Images: Taci Thompson