Last night at Riverbend Music Center one of the greatest modern heavy metal bands, Avenged Sevenfold performed a thrilling hour and a half long show to a packed house. The first half of the set consisted of hits spanning the last decade. In the second half of the show a giant 40-foot dead skeleton astronaut descended out of the darkness of the ceiling which marked the transition to the new songs from the album The Stage. The crowd was ecstatic to hear some of the popular anthems such as, "Nightmare" and "Hail to the King" played early in the show. Avenged Sevenfold used pyrotechnics to complement their explosive live music. The fire on stage brought out the excitement of the crowd.

Although it might be controversial, we think that Avenged Sevenfold is our generation's Metallica. After attending the biggest heavy metal festivals for the past two years, it seems that Avenged Sevenfold is the biggest and most desirable headlining band to have at a festival. The combination of satanic imagery, melodic guitar riffs, high energy song writing, and perfect metal vocals make them one of the most entertaining hard rock acts we have seen thus far in our lives.

The story of Avenged Sevenfold has not always been happy, as their drummer "The Rev" died from a drug overdose in 2009. They have written songs about his death and one of the songs performed, "Almost Easy" was a tribute to him and all of their passed loved ones. 

Avenged Sevenfold at Riverbend was a great heavy metal show. There are so many great and memorable hits that there was not enough time during the show to play all of them. Standing in assigned seating does not do the show justice compared to the feeling of being crushed in an army of metal heads at a festival like Rock on the Range or Louder than Life. Being in assigned seating does not promote the mayhem and chaos that their music provokes. There were many times during the show where we wished there was a giant circle pit that we could run into with complete disregard for our personal safety.

If you missed Avenged Sevenfold at this show don't worry because we are sure that they will be headlining many festivals in the future.

Setlist:
The Stage
Afterlife
Hail to the King
Paradigm
Buried Alive
So Far Away
Nightmare
God Damn
Almost Easy
Warmness on the Soul
Planets
Acid Rain

Encore:
Bat Country
A Little Piece of Heaven