Review and photos by Greg Maki
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The humbly named “Greatest of All Tours” did its best to live up to that (tongue-in-cheek) billing on a Saturday night in Hershey, Pennsylvania, with the two featured acts taking very different paths to get there. Headliner Volbeat played a career-spanning set touching on all but its first record, while Halestorm, in direct support, loaded up on songs from its newly released “Everest” album.
But first, metalcore act The Ghost Inside took the stage. Frontman Jonathan Vigil remarked that it was the largest early-arriving crowd he had seen so far on the tour. But most in the audience didn’t seem to know what to make of a much more aggressive sound than would be in store for the rest of the night. Even so, every time The Ghost Inside plays a show it feels like a major win, with the band having battled back from a horrific bus crash in 2015.
THE GHOST INSIDE SET LIST: “Going Under,” “Dear Youth (Day 52),” “Earn It,” “Death Grip,” “Wash It Away,” “Avalanche,” “Aftermath”
Originally from Pennsylvania, Halestorm could have treated this show like a victory lap, sticking to the many hits it has amassed throughout its career. Instead, the quartet dove headfirst into its new record, playing a whopping nine songs from “Everest” barely more than a week after its release. That’s a gutsy move, especially when you’re technically an opening act and a sizable portion of the audience isn’t there specifically to see you. Only a mature and confident band could pull it off, and that is exactly what Halestorm is—for good reason. “Everest” is its best album in more than a decade, with a rawness, a rough-around-the-edges feel that translates well to the stage. It feels like it could’ve been the next logical step from Halestorm’s 2012 record “The Strange Case of …”—still the band’s high point—and it feels like that opinion was affirmed by the total omission of the three albums in between.
Highlights of the 15-song set included the raucous opener “WATCH OUT!,” the bluesy “Like a Woman Can,” current single “Darkness Always Wins” and the bordering-on-metal “Fallen Star.”
Frontwoman Lzzy Hale spoke at length about the band’s long history in Pennsylvania, repeatedly expressing gratitude for the fans sticking with the band going back to its days as an unsigned act playing the local scene. So while the band’s approach may have been a bit unorthodox, it was a triumphant homecoming all the same.
HALESTORM SET LIST: “WATCH OUT!,” “Love Bites (So Do I),” “Broken Doll,” “I Get Off,” “Shiver,” “Familiar Taste of Poison,” “Rain Your Blood on Me,” “Like a Woman Can,” “Darkness Always Wins,” “Fallen Star,” “Freak Like Me,” Drum solo, “K-I-L-L-I-N-G,” “Everest,” “Here’s to Us,” “I Miss the Misery”
All the way from Denmark, Volbeat is no stranger to U.S. stages, having tallied 11 number 1 songs on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, the most ever for a band based outside North America. Now with too many hits and fan favorites to fit into a single show, the band did its best to send everyone home satisfied, playing some of its most well-known selections—including “Lola Montez,” “A Warrior’s Call,” “Sad Man’s Tongue,” “Die to Live,” “Black Rose,” “Still Counting”—alongside four tracks from its 2025 album “God of Angels Trust.”
The new songs seem to be played with a bit more vigor than the rest, with vocalist/guitarist Michael Poulsen particularly enthused by the brilliantly named “In the Barn of the Goat Giving Birth to Satan’s Spawn in Dying World of Doom.” (I can say, with confidence, that it was the first time I’d seen someone at a rock show lead the crowd in a call-and-response of “baa.”) “Demonic Depression” and “By a Monster’s Hand” also seem like long-term keepers in the set list.
Elsewhere, “Die to Live” felt a bit empty without the piano and saxophone in the instrumental break, and the band has lost a bit of showmanship following the 2023 departure of lead guitarist Rob Caggiano. Touring guitarist Flemming C. Lund nailed all the parts, however, and a wide smile rarely left his face throughout the 90-minute show. Given that he also has worked with Poulsen in the death metal act Asinhell and contributed leads to “God of Angels Trust,” Lund could be here to stay, and that’s not a bad thing.
Other highlights of the set included the psychobilly number “The Devil Rages On,” the anthemic “For Evigt” and a truncated cover of Black Sabbath’s “Children of the Grave” in honor of the late Ozzy Osbourne. For the show-closing “Still Counting,” Poulsen brought a couple dozen kids from the audience up onstage to represent the “next generation of rock and metal” (and changed “assholes” to “youngsters” in the song’s famous opening line). Such a wholesome end to a show littered with songs about the devil, demons and monsters.
VOLBEAT SET LIST: “The Devil’s Bleeding Crown,” “Lola Montez,” “A Warrior’s Call,” “Sad Man’s Tongue,” “Demonic Depression,” “Fallen,” “Shotgun Blues,” “In the Barn of the Goat Giving Birth to Satan’s Spawn in a Dying World of Doom,” “By a Monster’s Hand,” “The Devil Rages On,” “Die to Live,” ”Time Will Heal,” “Black Rose,” “Seal the Deal,” “For Evigt,” “Children of the Grave,” “Still Counting”
LINKS:
www.volbeat.dk
www.halestormrocks.com
www.theghostinside.com
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