Wratfest '19 featuring Breaking Benjamin et.al.

My latest concert event was promoted by 105.5 WDHA and 95.9 WRAT and dubbed Wratfest 2019. It featured Breaking Benjamin with support from Chevelle, Three Days Grace, Dorothy, and Diamante. I had seen the top three bands before, but Chevelle and Breaking Benjamin are two of my all-time favorites so I was excited to see them again. I had also heard about Dorothy and Diamante from songs on SiriusXM's Octane channel, and so I was curious to see how they would be in a live setting. All the performers were really solid. This concert did not stick out for me as one of the best musically, but it will stand out for the unique experience that it was. First, I scored great seats about 10 rows from the stage. Further, the performance of Breaking Benjamin was special because lead singer Ben is from New Jersey and he really went out of the way to connect with the fans.

After a sizeable walk from lot 8, I was pleased that although the first band had started, I hadn't missed the entire set. In fact, when I got to amphitheater, Diamante was performing "Hear Me Now" which is actually a Bad Wolves song that features her singing.  Bad Wolves opened for Breaking Benjamin last year and had one of my top 10 albums of 2018.  Diamante Azzura Bovelli has been a solo artist since 2014, but I wasn't familiar with her until this single was heavily featured on Octane.  She has a strong voice and her blue hair looked awesome on stage.   She finished with Haunted which is one of her hardest rocking songs, which I enjoyed.

Next up was another band named for it's female lead singer, Dorothy.  Dorothy Martin has a more soulful style of singing, however, she also has power. The band blends blues, country, and rock with elements of a throw-back style made new. I was most familiar with the song "Raise Hell" from hearing it on Octane. Other standouts are current single, "Who Do You Love," 'Down to the Bottom', and "Flawless" which reminds me of the chorus to Train's "Calling All Angels" with a rock-country twist. A couple of songs into the set, Dorothy asked the crowd to stand. Most people obliged and I think it helped increase the energy for the band and the audience. Before the show I had watched a couple of her videos on YouTube and noticed that her hairstyle and color changes, but it is usually dark and wavy. To my surprise this night, it was a lighter shade of brown, long, and very straight. Dorothy also wore a wide brimmed hat for the entire performance. This is not my typical go-to music, but I like the bluesy roots and new rock attitude. This is a band to watch.

Three Days Grace was third. I could have sworn that I saw Three Days Grace at a festival years ago, but according to my concert list of 145 concerts attended, I have not seen them before. Three Days Grace blew up in 2003-2004 with their self-titled debut album with the singles "I Hate Everything About You," "Just Like You," and "Home." The 2006 follow up One-X, featured four singles "Animal I Have Become," "Pain," "Never Too Late" and "Riot." They played all of these along with "Break" and "The Good Life from 2009's Life Starts Now and "Infra-Red" from 2018's Outsider. Since 2013, Matt Walst, has been the lead singer. He had great energy on stage and the entire band sounded great with a 45 minute set full of hits.

Chevelle was in the penultimate position. They played about a 45 minute set also with a good mix of tunes off of seven of their eight studio albums. They opened with "Young Wicked" off their latest album The North Corridor. It's a good song, but I don't love it as an opener. They followed that up with the Clincher, which is one of my favorites. Pete messed up the lyrics a little bit, maybe because they don't play this one as much anymore. He apologized and said they'd have to come back and play it correctly. Then came "Jars", "Send the Pain Below", and "An Island" which are all headbangers. Then came two more from Corridor, "Door to Door Cannibals" and Joyride" and I thought it slowed down the set momentum. "Face to the Floor", "the Red," "Comfortable Liar," and "I Get It" rounded things out pretty well. Pete made a couple humorous comments about the age of some of their songs. Before they played "the Red" he said that they "just came out with it" and "I hope this one climbs the charts." It is in fact from 2002 and got a ton of radio and MTV airplay when it came out. Having seen them for the 9th time, I've seen a few more sets that excited me more, but Chevelle are great. They thanked the fans and thanked all the other bands on the tour.

Finally, Breaking Benjamin came out and played for an hour and a half. After a couple of songs they took a pause to invite a bunch of kids and their parents to join the VIPs on a set of risers on either side of the stage. Later Ben would go up to each one and play guitar with them. The other guys gave away guitar picks. They played 16 songs drawing from each of their 6 studio albums. The middle of the set also featured a medley of the Imperial March from Star Wars, Pantera's Cowboys From Hell, Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, Metallica's Enter Sandman, and Rage Against the Machine's Bulls on Parade. Not only was this a fun interlude, but what struck me most was how well Ben easily transitioned vocally from grunge to Freddie Mercury to rap. His Zach DeLaRocha impression was pretty awesome. You can find video of this on my FB page, but my iPhone 6 isn't going to do it justice. On a few other songs, Ben has his guitarists sing. Both of the other guys are quite capable, but Ben has such an amazing vocal range and tone that I, personally, don't want anyone else singing lead. The other major takeaway from this show was that Ben really connected with the audience. He talked about being born in Atlantic City and raised in Ocean County until he was 15. Besides the aforementioned interaction with the children, he also covered all parts of the stage and came out into the crowd more than I have ever seen him do. In fact, he played the last three songs off stage completely. He started to come up my aisle at one point and I was excited because on was on the end of the row, but people jammed the walkway and he couldn't come up to my row. Later he entered the crowd from the opposite aisle and was able to penetrate further. Then he worked his way across the row in front of me. He stopped in the middle of the seats to sing "Rain." You could tell he was getting emotional and tearing up a bit. After that he again thanked the crowd for supporting him, BB, the tour, and rock music in general. He thanked all the bands again (he had done it from the stage too). Then he made his way right by me and I thanked him and gave him a fist bump! Then he started singing "Diary of Jane" right in front of me and walked further up my aisle to finish. I caught a pick from the stage and my awesome time had come to a conclusion. I dare say they sounded tighter the other times I saw them, including headlining PNC last year, however, this was a special show and cemented them as one of my all time favorites.

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