Review: Rock Yourself To Sleep Tour 2011

I attended the Rock Yourself To Sleep Tour at Station 4 in St. Paul, Minnesota on Jan. 8, 2011, which consisted of We Came As Romans as the headliner, For Today, The Word Alive, Woe, Is Me, Texas In July, and Lions Lions.  I had a near perfect location to watch the show and the crowd throughout the night.

The show seemed to start out strong by selling out the day before, but the day of the show I woke up to the news that the We Came As Romans tour bus broke down en route to St. Paul from Chicago. The Color Morale ended up bringing the guys into Minnesota in order to perform.

The first band was Lions Lions, who I was unable to see because of the line outside the venue.  I believe they are only playing select shows on this tour, so the opening band may change from show to show. Next came Texas In July, who are from Pennsylvania. Their bassist had great energy staring into the crowd and eying individuals while spinning around. The band had great energy as a whole on stage and got the sold out crowd ready for a long night.

Next came Woe, Is Me who are from Atlanta, Georgia.  The band was probably the most interactive on stage for the night and were having the time of their lives. At one point, the keyboard player picked his top key set up off the stand throwing it over his head and back down again in time to hit some notes.  The band even played their cover of Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok”, which they admitted to not liking. The two vocalists, three if you include the keyboard player who had a microphone around his neck, are ones to watch as well if you are planning on seeing Woe, Is Me.  The clean vocals from Tyler Carter are amazing on the band’s album Number[s] and held true live along with the heavy growls coming from Michael Bohn.

Fourth up was The Word Alive. Despite not being a big fan of the band’s latest release, Deceiver, I was greatly impressed by the nights performance.  I saw the guys at Warped Tour 2010 where I was amazed by their stage presence and this topped that performance by a long shot.  Vocalist Tyler “Telle” Smith started the performance by jumping into the crowd with a full ski mask on, like that on the cover of Deceiver.  Guitarists Zack Hansen and Tony Pizzuti carefully plucked away at high notes and shared guitar solos throughout the night. The crowd undeniably loved The Word Alive, creating the widest pit I have seen at Station 4 in all my years of attending shows there.

Next was For Today who are from Sioux City, Iowa.  All I can really say about this band is that their performance is epic.  I do not listen to them and did not know much about the guys walking into the show, but did leave quite impressed.  The band stopped mid-set in order to give a short speech of their beliefs and immediately threw themselves back into the show.  The crowd had many For Today fans in it, jumping up and down and screaming into the microphone that was put into the audience by vocalist Mattie Montgomery.

Finally was the headliner We Came As Romans.  Unfortunately, the band was running quite behind and left a gap of about 45 minutes between For Today and their performance.  The crowd was growing impatient as fellow touring mates did as much as they could to prepare for the band’s arrival.  The band ran into the venue with backpacks and as much merchandise as they could carry in their hands.  After sound checks and tinkering was done with The Word Alive’s drumset, the band rushed into their set.  At first you could sense the frustration from the guys and Kyle Pavone’s in-ears were malfunctioning, but they made amends and threw their energy into the show.  Smith from The Word Alive joined for his guest vocals on the song “Intentions” as guitarist Joshua Moore played hard through the set despite feeling ill that day.  In between scanning the stage and the crowd, I glanced at bass player Andy Glass at the perfect moment to see him tossing his instrument up, down, left, right, and all around his body in interesting ways. The crowd reacted very positively even after the long wait.

Overall, this line-up was pretty amazing and I was pretty entertained. If the show had not have had all the problems with We Came As Romans, which happen, the show would have been nearly perfect.  Taking all of that into consideration, the guys still put on an energetic show for their loyal fans.  I also found many members of all of the bands walking around the venue and they were all very nice and willing to talk to their fans. This is a tour that, if you are planning on attending, you will not be disappointed.