The night started off nice and easy with some smooth tunes brought to us by Speak Low If You Speak Love. I thoroughly enjoyed these guys a lot, it was like listening to State Champs (SPOILER ALERT: The bass player of state champs is the vocals for this band).

After their set it was a whole new vibe to take the stage, a more energetic vibe. Creeper comes on and just starts a pit going right away then I notice the guitar player Ian comes out with a plastic bag on his head like Jason before he got his hockey mask in Friday the 13th! I think they were a good opener to start a crowd going and jumping.

Then Seaway comes up, which I was thrilled for personally. I caught these guys once opening up two years ago and it’s pretty much what got me into their music afterwards. The thing I noticed from this set was all the crowd surfing. I mean for The Ogden and it’s layout it makes it weird to crowd surf because it goes in layers and sections so you have to be in the very bottom to do so.

Finally as Neck Deep walked on we all screamed as the opening to Judgment Day blew out our ears. As the third song came in (Gold Steps) about half way through we got kicked out of the photo pit because “there was too much crowd surfing” which I mean I get for liability but we could manage it easily. Either way, I noticed the lighting wasn’t being used fully so I was confused but as soon as Indiana Jones snippet faded in we all knew Kali Ma was about to go down. Then all the lights came into play and looked fantastic. Near the end of the set was unique because Ben came out with an acoustic guitar and started going into playing December with just a spot light on him while the crowd lit him up with phones and chanted along to the chorus.

Words and photos: Austin Voldseth