By snoadmin
The smells of body odor and excitement filled the room as a sold-out crowd witnessed Senses Fail’s scream-packed performance at Chain Reaction in Anaheim on Thursday night.
As soon as the hardcore quintet took the stage, the room seemed to shift toward the front as fans pushed to get as close to the band as possible.
There was never a second in which someone in the audience wasn’t crowd surfing, something prohibited at the all-ages venue. This ultimately led those who braved the surf to get kicked out of the show. Even Senses Fail’s vocalist, Buddy Nielsen, jumped in the crowd to have a mass of arms catch him as he screamed the lyrics to the opening song, “Lungs Like Gallows.”
Throughout the night, Nielsen poked fun at various things including “The Jersey Shore,” which got the audience to laugh as he made fun of the characters and situations from the show. He also made fun of the West Coast, saying that they “didn’t really know what cold was.” The audience couldn’t agree with him more, especially as the local club seemed like an inferno with all of the sweating bodies and no air-conditioning.
Some Senses Fail fans seemed to worship Nielsen as if he was superhuman. A few scattered bodies at the front of the crowd rested their heads against the stage as they were continually pushed and singing along to the songs. Despite his fame, Nielsen proved he was average as he drunkenly messed up on announcing his song titles not once, but twice.
“This next song is called ‘Shark Attack,'” he informed the audience. The rest of the band corrected him and said they were going to play their hit “Calling All Cars.” Despite the band’s corrections, Nielsen began to sing the lyrics to “NJ Falls into the Atlantic,” a song they already performed that night. He laughed with the audience at his double mistake and attributed his verbal clumsiness to drinking in the parking lot since alcohol was not permitted in the venue.
Throughout the night, the band played a set list that had the crowd completely hyped from start to finish. They performed old songs as well as new and ended their set with a crowd sing-along, “One Eight Seven.” Not a single mouth was closed as Nielsen and the rest of the audience sang the suicidal-like song in unison. The mood in the room seemed very intense, yet intimate at that point since everyone seemed connected to one singular purpose: to appreciate one of the songs that attributed to Senses Fail’s fame and be thankful that such a big band in the scene played this small and intimate venue.
