REVIEW: Sleeping With Sirens on 'The Medicine Tour'
Ten years later and Sleeping With Sirens’ classic “If I’m James Dean, You’re Audrey Hepburn” still tugs at the heartstrings the way it did in 2010. This was not my first time hearing Kellin Quinn deliver those famous lyrics live, but they gripped me the same way they did the first time I heard them.
Having caught Sleeping With Sirens open for Good Charlotte on their Generation Rx tour, it was obvious the crowd was there for Good Charlotte and had little interest in what Sleeping With Sirens was doing. Now, a year or so later, I was able to catch them headlining The Medicine Tour in Toronto, ON. Besides the venue not letting us in until half way through Point North’s set - don’t even get me started on this - this show was much more in line with what I was expecting from a Sleeping With Sirens set. The crowd was completely invested, screaming every word to every song back at the band, and it only solidified them as one of my favorite post-hardcore acts of all time.
Going into The Medicine Tour, I was fully aware that Sleeping With Sirens would be playing the majority of their new album How It Feels To Be Lost, so I was mentally preparing myself to not hear such favorites as “Captain Tyin Knots VS Mr Walkway (No Way)” and “Four Corners and Two Sides”. What I will say is that the new material translated extremely well live - much heavier than the studio versions at that - and fit the overall sound of the setlist.
Opening with the lead single from the new album “Leave It All Behind”, Sleeping With Sirens got the crowd involved from the get-go. They kept the new sound alive by transitioning into “Never Enough”, but it was the third song in the set, “Tally It Up, Settle The Score”, that the crowd really came alive. From this point forward, the mosh pit remained a fixture in the crowd, minus the short acoustic performance of course. Transitioning into classics such as “Do It Now Remember It Later” and “If I’m James Dean, You’re Audrey Hepburn”, with a handful of new tracks mixed in, they kept the intensity at an all-time high.
It was clear at this point in the set that the band had been feeling the strains of the long tour. While Kellin will always deliver his signature vocal performances, there was a degree of harshness that typically comes with an extended tour schedule. Sleeping With Sirens were not the only band exhibiting the exhaustions of life on the road, Set It Off front-man Cody Carson was sure to mention that he was also battling a sickness. Nonetheless both bands put forth a memorable performance.
Moving into many fans’ favorite part of a Sleeping With Sirens set, the acoustic session, Kellin and guitarist Nick Martin beautifully deliver “Scene Five - With Ears to See and Eyes to Hear” and “Scene Two - Roger Rabbit” from 2012’s If you were a movie, this would be your soundtrack. While I was not-so-secretly hoping to hear their rendition of “Iris”, I was blown away by their stripped down harmonies.
Rounding out the main set, the band delivered four new tracks back-to-back (-to-back-to-back) with “Blood Lines”, “Medicine (Devil In My Head)”, “Agree to Disagree”, and “Break Me Down”. Kellin claimed “Agree to Disagree” was the best song the band had ever written, to which I exclaimed “Have you ever heard “A Trophy Fathers Trophy Son”?” Joking aside, the breakdown in “Break Me Down” hit extremely hard and I was pleasantly surprised by the shear energy in that room.
Playing into the common trope of leaving the stage and waiting for the crowd to beg for an encore, the band proceeded back on stage to deliver two setlist staples, “Kick Me” and “If You Can’t Hang”. As soon as I heard those famous lyrics, “Met a girl at seventeen / Thought she meant the world to me”, I was brought right back to the first time I heard this song; just a young, pissed-off teenager looking to this band to vocalize my frustrations.
Nostalgia is truly a powerful force in this genre of music, but Sleeping With Sirens demonstrated they’re just as relevant today as they were ten years ago. For anyone hesitant on attending a Sleeping With Sirens show because of the amount of new material being played, I urge you to give it a shot; it will surprise you in the best way possible. Sleeping With Sirens will be joining The Amity Affliction on a co-headlining tour across North America this spring, along with Stray From The Path and UnityTX, and I may just have to jump on these tickets too.