Coheed & Cambria – The Armory – Minneapolis MN -July 25th 2018

The Story so Far kicked off Coheed and Cambria/Taking Back Sunday’s summer 2018 tour.

Formed in 2007 in Walnut Creek, California. Under Soil and Dirt was their first debut full-length album released in 2011. Their second album, What You Don’t See (2013) spent a week on the Billboard 200 at number 46. The highly energetic pop-punk band is set to release an album September 21, 2018. This was my first time seeing The Story so Far and I definitely understand what the hype is all about with them. They are very enthusiastic and full of life and I would enjoy seeing them again when they come through Minnesota.

Now I’ve always had a great love for Taking Back Sunday since the release of their debut album, Tell All Your Friends (2002), and I’m pretty sure I had it on repeat forever, even today. With the release of their second album, Where You Want To Be (2004) debuted at number 3 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, with 220,000 copies sold. Rolling Stone Magazine listed the album as one of the top fifty records of 2004, in which I believe was well deserved, as it was and still is a great album. Adam Lazzara is a very skilled performer, in which he’s known for swinging his microphone around on stage and catching it and has most unquestionably perfected, and still does to this day. I’ve seen Taking Back Sunday several times and they are always very engaging with the crowd and constantly entertaining to see live.

Coheed and Cambria is also another band that I have loved and followed for 10+ years. Back when MTV still played music videos I remember seeing their video for “A Favor House Atlantic” and was blown away. I remember seeing them on the Vans Warped Tour back in 2003 and instantly fell more in love. With their super energetic presence they steal the show and capture everyone’s attention wherever they are. To this day they are still doing it. I heard someone say something about the group’s light show on this tour and thought it would just be another regular light show, or what I’m more used to seeing. Their lights were incredible, you definitely had to be there to experience it yourself to know exactly what everyone else was talking about. The band is set to release a new album in 2018. They premiered a new song at a show in Lancaster, PA and after the videos of the song went viral they decided to premiere the video for a new song, “The Dark Sentencer”. June 22, 2018 Coheed announced the name of their new album, Vaxis – Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures, and will be released on October 5, 2018. The album follows the Armory Wars storyline that the band’s first seven albums followed. In which some are based off lead vocalist/guitarist Claudio Sanchez’s science fiction comics, The Bag.On.Line Adventures, written by him.

Review and photos by Kaila Turck