Emmure / Stick To Your Guns
By: Mary Welch
A few weeks ago I saw Chicago’s El Famous open for Cane Hill with Afterlife and Sharptooth and their sound and personality as a band was something I got into. Now seeing them for the second time at the House of Blues, one of my favourite venues, their vocalist cracked jokes on stage and was kind enough to hand out free CD’s at the end of their set. Seeing them open for other great bands was awesome and I’ll be sure to come to the rest of their shows in the future!
I had not previously been a fan of Long Island’s hardcore band Sanction before seeing them, but their on-stage energy level was respectably high, so high that it was pretty difficult to photograph vocalist David Blom. Nonetheless, I got some great shots of a great set and really enjoyed their instrumentals.
There has not been an album I’ve listened to more this year than Deadweight by Wage War. Safe to say I’m currently very, very obsessed with their sound… What I admire most is the unparalleled emotion in each of their songs, and I admire the mix of vocals between Briton Bond and Cody Quistad. With some bands you just hear the music they make, but with Wage War I feel that I truly am able to listen to them and all that they have to say in their incredible songs on Deadweight. I was also lucky enough to photograph them at Warped Tour this year!
Like Sanction, I had not really heard Stick to Your Guns before, but they fit perfectly in the night’s lineup and got the crowd hyped for Emmure coming up next. Afterwards, I learned that everyone in the band is straight edge and that turned me onto them for sure. I did some more digging and learned that they have teamed up with organizations such as Denver Homeless Out Loud and Food Not Bombs Denver in a “mutual aid effort to collect donations to help the homeless community of Denver and surrounding areas,” in addition to their #HopeBringers Initiative created to motivate people to commit more acts of kindness in their community.
Not only seeing but photographing Emmure was something I got to cross off my list. Their most current album Look At Yourself has been one of my go-to’s for the past year or two, and you can read my review of it here. They sounded just as good live as they do on the album, and I shamelessly sang/shouted along to their songs with the rest of the crowd. Part of me wishes I could have just had a good time and not had to focus on shooting, but the more I shoot for Savvage the better I seem to get and I am so happy with how the show and photos turned out. Hopefully you all like these as much as I do!
