Concert Reviews (252)

• June 2, 2025
• Colleen Johnson
• 1087
• 0

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The Xfinity Center is something you should experience at least once a season. Surrounded by woods, with a $19 chicken and fries combo, and a flannel to throw on as the sun sets, it’s truly a unique experience. Friday marked the first concert of 2025 at Xfinity Center, and no strangers to the venue, Pierce the Veil and Sleeping With Sirens brought their sold-out I Can’t Hear You tour to the illustrious venue. Both bands have spent some time at this venue in the past, as Xfinity was once the destination for the Massachusetts date of the VANS Warped Tour every year. In those days, however, the bands would play on pop-up stages in the parking lots. This time around, Pierce the Veil, Sleeping With Sirens, and Beach Weather in tow, took on a sold-out crowd on the amphitheater stage to just under 20,000 people.

The first act of the night was Beach Weather, the group’s frontman Nick Santino, talked about his first experience at the venue, considering he’s a local guy, “I live thirty minutes from here, I’m a Braintree boy.” Speaking about his first experience at the venue, Santino said, “I came here in ‘98, stood against that wall and watched NSYNC when I was 10.” All around the lineup, every band commented on how special and unbelievable it was to be playing this show, especially, I’m sure, looking out on so many voices screaming every word back to them throughout the night.

To start it off with Beach Weather, a group that starkly contrasted the latter two bands of the night, the band still delivered a strong performance despite only a tiny area to work with on stage. It was a straight line across a space that was maybe three people deep, but that didn’t stop the band from putting on a swift thirty minute set that balanced great banter with the crowd, and yet, a ton of tracks from a band that’s been picking up traction over the last few years. Kicking off the set with an older moment in “Chit Chat,” one of their earliest releases, they scooted into more recent moments like “Unlovable” off their first album, Pineapple Sunrise. The band also talked about how that day, they released a deluxe version of their sophomore album, Melt’d, which is where they pulled their following few songs from with the incredibly catchy “Seth Cohen,” “Tulips,” as well as “Hardcore Romance,” which brought to mind acts like Weathers and Bad Suns.

The set wound down with two of their older tracks, my personal favorite, “Swoon,” and a song that had made its rounds on TikTok, “Sex, Drugs, Etc.” The latter came to life in the crowd as a sea of phones became visible. At the same time, there was a bit of a sing-along and a few acknowledgements by Santino as they finished out their set. While Beach Weather may not have seemed the most conventional choice to open up a tour like this, it was a similar choice to a band who did the earlier parts of the tour, with Daisy Grenade. It’s not surprising that this tour wouldn’t have the most conventional openers, considering there were different bands too, on paper, at Warped Tour. The whole ethos of the Warped community was bringing together all types of artists, all in it together. Something we’ll see in a little bit with the return of three very eclectic lineups this summer, and something the next band could relate to.

Sleeping With Sirens was up next. During their set, frontman Kellin Quinn reflected on the early days of the band coming to Massachusetts, discussing how they initially toured with hardcore and deathcore bands, and how fans were still receptive and gave them a chance. One of those earliest shows, if not their first headlining show in the area, was at the famous Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge, where I sat down with Kellin for the first time in 2012, right before “King for A Day” came out. When it came to Friday night’s set, the energy was a little different. As soon as the opening note was struck, the lights went down, and the crowd immediately rose in what felt like unison, screaming as the band members made their way onto the stage.

Kicking it off literally –  with, “Kick Me” – Quinn’s interaction with the audience was almost immediate with him saying after the first chorus, “Holy shit Massachusetts,” and the crowd never stopped from there. Despite playing to a sold-out, massive crowd, Quinn and the band still managed to give a performance that brought me back to many a Palladium club show, yet still gave massive veteran energy. The band quickly moved into “Leave It All Behind,” to an enormous reaction from the crowd, and this was relentless throughout the night. Quinn prefaced it by just saying, “This is an older song,” which warranted an immediate round of applause before the first note.

Throughout the set, Quinn constantly engaged with the crowd, including at this point sweetly saying, “I don’t know where I’d be without this band, this stage, and you guys.” He also later on in the set as the band broke into easily one of the biggest hits of their career, “If You Can’t Hang,” and went right over to someone who had been mosh dancing and screaming the lyrics, with Quinn pointing at them and going, “I fucking love you!” As the band wrapped up their set, he immediately leaned down to pick up his set list and jumped into the pit to hug them and give them the setlists. While others tried to flock to him, he jumped right back on stage and made his exit, but this exchange was easily one of the sweetest fan-artist interactions I’ve seen in a minute.

Before the closing of “If You Can’t Hang,” Sleeping With Sirens played a set of hits that included some of their earliest, with moments like “A Trophy’s Father’s Trophy Son” and “Do It Now Remember It Later.” But also newer tracks like “Bloody Knuckles,” a track off their acoustic EP, “With Ears to See, and Eyes to Hear,” and the smash, “Better off Dead.” The set flowed without flaws and was a serious treat for their fans in attendance. Ending the set off Kellin said, “Pierce the Veil is very lucky because you’re about to be crazy as fuck.” That’s due in part to the electric performance Sleeping With Sirens put on. An old-school role of the main support band is to amp up the crowd, but their music, devoted fans, and live performance had the crowd roaring throughout. And yes, had them prepped for the just-as-electric performance that was about to come from Pierce The Veil.

No strangers to time spent in each other’s company, the groups’ two fan bases are intertwined. The two bands have done several tours together, and of course, as I mentioned earlier, Kellin was featured in one of Pierce The Veil’s biggest hits, the iconic “King For A Day.” Both bands’ careers skyrocketed starting in 2012, and they have maintained a strong friendship with each other, and the turnout at Friday’s show reflected that. The band came out on a stage with lights that had been designed as literal “jaws of life,” similar to the title of their most recent effort, Jaws of Life. For the past eighteen years, as discussed by lead singer Vic Fuentes, the band has been together as a trio, with the addition of their touring drummer, Loniel Robinson.  Robinson, though, similar to what happened when I saw Foo Fighters play their second show ever with their new drummer after the untimely passing of Taylor Hawkins, was wildly received by those in attendance, when Fuentes did an unnecessary introduction of the other guys in his band—calling them his “on-stage emergency contacts” before introducing Jaime Preciado and Tony Perry to those in attendance introducing their power ballad, “Emergency Contact,” from their latest right near the end of the set. The roars for their drummer that night were just as big as they were for the other three. He may not be a stranger to you as he drummed for fellow Warped favorites Letlive for several years as well, and has been playing with Pierce The Veil for the last few years.

Recently, the band has undertaken several massive tours. They found themselves as the main support for Blink-182 last summer, which included a Fenway Park show, and also played a sold-out MGM show just around the corner at one of Boston’s latest beauties of a venue. And that effort shone through, as the band played easily their biggest Massachusetts area-headlining show, one that followed up a sold-out Madison Square Garden show in the last few days. The second the band made their way onto the stage, it was clear that the recent success hadn’t gone to their heads at all, though. While there wasn’t as much verbal banter or interaction with the audience, their connection with the audience didn’t require words. Jaime Preciado was constantly going to the corners of the pit and sticking out his tongue while playing, giving out a smattering of high-fives at one point, and Fuentes was continually giving out grins, hearts, and mouthing “thank you” throughout the set.

The band kicked it off without flopping around a little, besides their of course token entrance music they’ve been doing since day one. Unlike the typical lights, which dimmed, those lights dimmed to indicate the beginning of the set. A long curtain then appeared, displaying images from all of the bands’ albums. Within a few seconds, the shadows of the members could be seen as the crowd roared and the phones came out. With that anticipation building up, the second that the curtain dropped, the longtime act immediately jumped into “Death of an Executioner” off of their most recent album. From the first song on, the crowd was an unrelentless wave of sound, be it newer songs off Jaws of Life, or of course, it’s like “Bulls In The Bronx,” which quickly followed up as the second track of the night. The band’s whirli-gigging around the stage with their guitars kept the energy up through the night and kept fans pleased all night.

Especially when it came to their setlist, while big moments like, “Bulletproof Love,” were missing from the setlist, what seemed to make fans beyond happy were deep cuts throughout the set like “She Makes Dirty Words Sound Pretty,” and “I’m Low on Gas and You Need a Jacket.” The love for the crowd was evident when Fuentes mentioned that the band had been together for eighteen years, so that every album would be represented throughout the set. It’s become a theme lately for tours to kind of touch on everything, but it’s a trend I can fully get behind. But to be frank, the second a banner fell with the Collide With The Sky artwork, the crowd was overpowering Fuentes’ vocals.

Just prior, Fuentes, Perry, and Preciado had come out on stage for an acoustic guitar moment for a few tracks. Still, besides the aforementioned performance of “Emergency Contact,” it was no holds barred from that point on. The second the opening note of “Caraphernelia” dropped, with Fuentes yelling, “What’s so good about picking up the pieces?” before jumping into an extended version, with Preciado taking on A Day To Remember’s Jeremy McKinnon’s parts, it was a rule-less land. The band ended their regular set with another smash in “Circles,” before coming back to the stage for an electric encore that of course ended with the song that truly put both Pierce The Veil and Sleeping With Sirens on the map, PTV’s 2012 hit, “King For A Day,” was honestly the only way to end an incredible set from Pierce The Veil.

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Photos – Pierce the Veil, Sleeping With Sirens, Beach Weather at Xfinity Center in Mansfield, MA on May 30th (photos by: John Hutchings)