Twas the night before the last day of Silverstein’s 10 year anniversary of This is How The Wind Shifts tour with Stray From The Path and Avoid as Indianapolis fans eagerly lined up outside of The Vogue. As the doors to the venue opened a sea of OG Silverstein shirts ran inside to the pit area and grabbed drinks while nostalgia and anticipation filled the air. This lineup brought so many people together as throughout the venue I spied old friends catching up and boasting with joy.
The Seattle natives in Avoid were the first to kick off the night and they set the bar high. Energetic isn’t a big enough word to describe Avoid’s stage presence and crowd management, in fact there’s a never ending stream of adjectives that can apply to them like engaging, edgy, wild, and chaotic in the best way. From the first riff the pit opened, and this same pit would not close until the final curtain closed at the end of the night. Within the first three songs, Avoid’s vocalist launched himself into the crowd and surfed midway back which opened the doors for the crowdsurfing from the audience that never stopped. Towards the end of their set one of their guitarists also threw his instrument to the side and launched himself into the crowd.
Following Avoid was the legends in Stray From The Path from the UK/New York City. Stray From The Path never offered the crowd a moment to catch their breath as they ripped through song after song and pushed the crowd to give more and more, with one single song alone seeing over 50 crowdsurfers. Stray From The Path have always been true to their name and their live show is no exception as they push the bar for being an absolute powerhouse band and even enacted a wall of death in the crowd.
Silverstein brought so much more to a typical 10 year tour than one would expect. Not only did fans get to hear How The Wind Shifts in full, but they also heard various other hit singles spanning the years like My Heroine, Smile in Your Sleep, The Afterglow and even a cover of Linkin Park’s One Step Closer. Silverstein also gave the fans a chance to truly become a part of the set when they were able to vote for their two favorite songs out of four choices that would be played live. The winner’s of this vote in Indianapolis were Smashed into Pieces and Your Sword Versus My Dagger. The setlist throughout the night bounced back and forth between hit singles and songs from How The Wind Shifts keeping fans on their feet throughout the entire night, and creating nonstop crowd energy and movement. Alas, the last crowdsurfer made their way over the barricade as the night came to a close with a 4 song encore that ended with Arrivals and Departures, perfectly sending the night into the history books of every attendee’s memory.
