Originally scheduled to play at St. Andrews Hall, a venue change saw Thrice play at Detroit’s Fillmore on June 22nd with excellent opening acts to boot. Gates, who opened and frankly sounded much like latter-day Thrice parallels were able to get a good contrast of sounds with the next act ready to go up. Local hardcore standouts La Dispute were able to invoke some wild moshing, while those in attendance awaited Thrice to take stage. La Dispute’s love (they hail from Grand Rapids) was evident as the crowd were immediately crowd surfing and showing signs of nonstop collision, even having the lead singer Jordan Dreyer hand the mic to an audience member for singing duties. A short intermission followed and eventually garnered some Thrice chants for the band to head out to perform for those anticipating a similar set.
When Thrice did take the stage, they opened up with their more refined and placid material from 2016’s To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere. Surprisingly only delving into their harder post-hardcore favorites once or twice with “Silhouettes, ”“Backdraft,” and “Cold Cash and Colder Hearts,” instead opting for balance dynamics throughout the entire set. Slightly deterred was Dustin Kensrue when an object hit him in the face in the middle of “Backdraft,” stopping his participation for a few moments with what looked like his disgust. Thankfully there wouldn’t be a redux and it seemed to be an incidental event, and “Backdraft” eventually went about without a hitch, much like the rest of the set. Thrice relied on an ebb and flow approach with their setlist – ebbing with their new and past melodious numbers like “Yellow Belly” into a peak of energy that pushed the crowd like “Cold Cash and Colder Hearts.” It felt too few and far between for such a raucous opening earlier by La Dispute as many were ready to go all-in up front.
This couldn’t be more apparent when Thrice came out for an encore. They played their traditional post-hardcore favorites to the glee of the crowd, whom erupted when they opened with “The Artist In The Ambulance.” Once Kensrue sang the lyrics “what am I to show except, the promises I never kept? I lie here shaking here on this bed to the weight of my regrets,” the crowd were in the heated mixture of surfing in the darkness, unison singing, and hard line moshing that felt like it was bubbling to reach the surface within their set up to this point. The encore was short and sweet with “Years To Come” and “The Earth Will Shake” appeasing those ready for more consistent and forceful Thrice that they previously started as in their younger days.
