Justin Nuoffer
DISTURBED
w/ Sevendust + Three Days Grace
3/4/25 – Fiserv Forum – Milwaukee, WI
©JUSTIN NUOFFER/NUOFFERMEDIA.COM
The first step in downtown Milwaukee’s revitalization was the creation of Fiserv Forum and the Deer District just off Old World Third Street, a street that has always been a heartbeat of life in Wisconsin’s largest city. The area is a hub of dining, taverns, and entertainment, which was a focus in the city’s renewed growth. However, on this night the area was littered with hard rock and metal fans. The rain didn’t deter anyone from having fun and spending time with their favorite artists. Out in front of the Milwaukee Bucks home arena, the fans anxiously waited in lines for the doors to open. Across the courtyard, they also sat in the covered restaurant patios or jammed into every bar possible. With battle jackets and band shirts all over, it was no surprise the music blasting from the businesses fit the mood.
Entering into the state-of-the-art facility, you move quickly through the security checkpoints and into the main foyer. Straight ahead, the tour poster illuminates on a ribbon board standing at least eight feet high and the length of the hall. People stop for pictures before being escorted onto the lower level of the arena or up the escalators to the main walking concourse. The upper concourse was a spectacle. Every type of food vendor possible was available. The busiest areas were the beer stands. After all, this is “cream city” and its history is well-known and plastered on every surface possible around the town. Heritage means something here and it was no surprise Disturbed has brought their twenty-fifth-anniversary tour of “The Sickness” to a city that has always embraced them. The band themselves are no strangers to the city, state, and community having either lived or studied in the area. The mutual knowledge of each other makes the bond that much stronger.
The Fiserv Forum was buzzing. The floor and seating were packed. The first act on the bill, Sevendust, is no stranger to massive stages and arena-sized shows. Sevendust performed on New Year’s Eve in Green Bay, so they are fresh in the minds of their dedicated fanbase. With a quick thirty-minute set time they wasted no time pumping out six of their most notable and hard-hitting hits.
Opening with their first single as a band, “Black” commanded the audience’s attention from the first note of the famed intro. The arena erupted. Frontman Lajon Witherspoon took immediate advantage of the large catwalk. He strolled out to the edge and unleashed his powerful vocals in front of fans who had made their way in early. His delivery was clean and efficient. The veteran of the metal scene was in peak performance mode.
Co-vocalist and drummer Morgan Rose made his presence felt during “Denial”. With every drumstick spin and snare snap, he unloaded equally as strong screams while playing. Clint Lowery and John Connolly ripped through all of those signature guitar riffs that have solidified their legacy. Armed with “Enemy” and “Praise” in the middle, they warmed up the pit. The floor started shaking and bodies started spinning around the room.
Sevendust are masters of their craft. Vinnie Hornsby roamed the stage dropping those deep-end bass lines. Peering out from underneath his cowboy hat, he engaged with the front row at every possible moment.
As a unit, they are a well-oiled machine whose history of impressive and well-loved performances on the biggest stages shows they are a perfect yet surprising pick as the opener. However, closing with “Face To Face” left no doubt they didn’t give a care in the World besides showing up and delivering body blows. The aggressive and pissed-off lyrics unleash levels of aggression and testosterone that most bands cannot dream of. The song is four minutes of pure stank face and foot stomping. Every breakdown is disgusting and hits the soul. Truly a song for every person who has ever felt wronged by someone close to them.
Sevendust leaves all of their energy and pent-up emotions out on the stage for the next band to deal with. They are masters of their craft and it was welcomed eagerly.
Check out our Sevendust concert photo gallery below:
Fans have been looking forward to the return of the almighty Three Days Grace with both vocalists for years, and it has happened. The reunion and tour are in Wisconsin and the energy radiating from the arena was uncanny. As the band slowly made their way out, Adam Gontier was by far the happiest person on the planet. His smile was contagious. Behind him co-vocalist Matt Walst smiled and pointed at Gontier while grabbing his microphone, then headed down the catwalk.
Halfway through “Animal I Have Become” they cross paths, and it was all smiles between the pair. It was a moment that signaled a new era of Three Days Grace. It wasn’t awkward at all. It was clean and full of love. The genuine appreciation for each other was there. They exchanged lyrics and screams with ease.
Tearing through three songs relatively quickly, they took a quick break to speak to the crowd and set up their next song with Gontier saying, “I love Milwaukee, I really do love it here. It’s always fucking great every time we come here. I was thinking about eventually, maybe, one day moving here or something. Would you guys take me in? It feels like a place I’d like to call home.” The cheers rang out from all around and “Home” jettisoned the band into the middle portion of their night.
Three Days Grace has created an incredibly strong set of modern rock hits that kept the head banging and they managed to fit all of them into their hour-long set time. With Walst backing away from the frontman duties and playing second guitar for most of it, the band watched on with his brother Brad whose basslines provided arguably the critical layer for “Chalk Outline”. The low end rattled the floor as he bounced around.
Across the stage, lead guitarist Barry Stock rocked back and forth while peering out towards the end of the catwalk. A brief glimpse of a smile popped out from under his white beard. Happily, they also announced their new album is almost completed. This led to the new single “Mayday” which managed to garner a huge reaction from the Milwaukee faithful. It struck every right chord.
The back half of the performance is where things became juicy. Armed with monster radio hits like “I Hate Everything About You”, “The Good Life”, and “Painkiller”, Three Days Grace crushed it. One after another, the lyrical content of those emotional gut punches landed and kept the eager crowd singing along. Mid-stage, Neil Sanderson stood up and looked out into the Fiserv Forum crowd and took it all in. His view was both of his vocalists together again at the edge of the catwalk surrounded by fans. As they moved through “Never Too Late,” the voices of Fiserv Forum continued to echo throughout and cell phone lights illuminated the darkened arena. If you weren’t feeling the moment before, you were now.
Upon the final song of their comeback stop in Wisconsin, the band thanked the crowd, and gave hand waves and the metal fist multiple times over. “Riot” is one of those songs live where it grabs you by the throat and shakes you awake. The circle pit broke open wide. Puffs of condensation rose from the middle. It was getting rowdy and Walst pointed it out. All in all, Three Days Grace brought the lumber and hit a grand slam. No one in the building could’ve asked for more out of them. This rejuvenation they are currently experiencing is exhilarating and with a new album around the corner, we can safely bet they will be back around soon.
Check out our Three Days Grace concert photo gallery below:
As the arena darkens, the stage also goes black. The large white banner covering the front of the stage starts flashing and a montage starts running. The intro is full of Disturbed‘s logos and imagery, and clips from videos and live performances spanning their entire history. The final imagery was a bank of televisions with various things from past moments. Then it zoomed into one specifically with the band together. Their original promotional photo as a band. The sound of an ECG pulsing in the background. A flash and their logo spinning as the screen read “Spread The Sickness. Infect The World.” A pocket watch and electrical flashes filled the screen and moved into one of a man in the electric chair, then The Sickness album cover boldly covered it all. The white sheet went blank and started to rise. Only the stage lit up in white light.
David Draiman is rolled out being strapped up in a straitjacket. As his stage hand unhooks the arms, he strolls out onto a long walkway from the middle of the stage dressed in a DOC onesie and a mask. While removing it and revealing his face, they launch themselves into the first track of their front-to-back play of The Sickness. “Voices” had the arena detonate itself into a deafening roar. Every word was crisp and clear from the unabashed frontman.
The floor of the arena shook as bassist John Moyer jumped and jogged around the stage. Concussion blasts rocketed upwards towards the roof. Nothing phased them; the strength of the band’s energy was felt from the moment the first note dropped on this anniversary tour. After all, there was no doubt this tour meant a lot after having to cancel the twentieth due to COVID. Here we are five years later and the album and band remain more popular than ever.
The first four songs were all singles released to radio back in 2000. “Voices”, “The Game”, “Stupify”, and “Down With the Sickness” had the Bucks home court in utter chaos. The mosh pit out in front of the catwalk engulfed the entire stage’s left side. Huge columns of fire blasted their way up often and flares shot upwards like rockets during breakdowns and choruses. The planning and timing for these were dead on and accurate. Only proving Disturbed were fresh and in ridiculously good shape.
The stage was bathed in green for “Down With The Sickness” and when drummer Mike Wengren played the legendary intro, frontman David Draiman stood mid-stage, raised his hand in the air and took deep breaths. You wanted to stand there and soak it all in as well. The building anticipation made the heart pump faster despite knowing what was coming; it always felt new and fresh. It was hard not to throw inhibitions to the wind and let loose screaming and singing every word. Unless you lived under a rock for the last twenty-five years you knew the songs.
Dan Donegan equipped himself with a new guitar from his arsenal after nearly every song. He and Moyer often moved together as a pair and posed for fans capturing cell phone images. Every chance they got they moved out onto the catwalk. Donegan took full advantage during “Conflict”. With fire blasts and the echoes of people screaming “Enemy,” the mean guitar riffs dished out stank face after stank face, especially with the final breakdown.
The back end of The Sickness capitalizes on three very popular tracks that are considered fan favorites. Draiman introduces them by saying “Does it feel like twenty-five years? My body sure feels like it’s been twenty-five years, but fuck it. The Sickness is rising once again!” and with a hand in the air and red covering the arena they deliver one of the more unique rock covers of all-time “Shout 2000” by Tears For Fears. If you ask random fans what their most cherished Disturbed song is, “Dropping Plates” would more than likely win it by running away. The slower punching song was overly appreciated in the seats.
The amount of folks that were dancing and moving along with the grind was a sight to behold. Visually from the floor, the seats look like ocean waves flowing forward and backward, and with one more song left of the album played afterwards, an incredible interlude overcame the PA system. Hearing the sounds of a thunderstorm kept the ears and eyes pointed toward the stage. Strobe flashes cracked around the stage, imitating lightning over a darkened stage, beginning to build up in fog and haze.
The wait was short. Once again Draiman was wheeled out by a stage hand, however, this time he was in an electric chair. The stagehand puts the cap over his head and straps him down. On the overhead speakers, a trial judgment delivering his sentence played over the speaker and sparks began to fly from the electric chair. Fake blood ran down his face and over his shoulders. His body shook, and in the background an ECG went flat. The rest of Disturbed reappear in black and white striped prison jumpers as they break into “The Meaning of Life”.
The dramatic intro captivated, but the song was the sticking point. The pure strength and raw power matched with killer lighting was a moment to behold and just like that the full album play was done. A record that was four times platinum in the US alone still touches the memory banks and rocks the nostalgia for a whole generation of fans.
The white cover dropped from the roof over the front of the stage during a short twenty-minute intermission. Just like with the intro, the show poster was projected onto it and then the bright light flashes strobed from the back of the stage illuminating their silhouettes. The Greatest Hits portion featured 3 stand-alone songs “Ten Thousand Fists”, “Bad Man”, and “The Light”. Indestructible featured two songs, the self-titled “Indestructible” and “Inside The Fire” to this portion of the show as well.
With the ringing of church bells, Donegan starts riffing and Disturbed decided to introduce their two-week-old song “I Will Not Break”. It was met with much fanfare as it came across as a perfect mixture of the band’s earlier material and the more polished newer albums. The number one song on the Hard Rock Digital Sales Board struck that chord with listeners. Perhaps the best parts of the night came from the two covers they performed. Genesis’ “Land of Confusion” is a timeless classic that is considered one of the best covers of the song. The song is a political statement within itself, but it isn’t one here. It is simply a really killer song.
However, there is nothing on the night that could top “The Sound of Silence”. The Simon & Garfunkel masterpiece is a beautiful ballad. A grand piano is rolled out to the end of the stage and Dan Donegan is behind it. The backdrop lights up like they are in a cathedral. Lights imitated candles flickering on the backdrop. Below them, along the back line, two acoustic guitar players and two cellos accompany the piano. The undiluted loveliness is a lot to take in. The moment is massive. The emotional charge is something that sits with you for days and remains seared into the memory banks.
All in all, Disturbed had some of their best selections for this back half. Visually it was jaw-dropping and sonically it was ear-pleasing. The amount of detail and construction of the set brought life to the show on its own, but this was a complete achievement.
As the venue began emptying into the main concourse, the awestruck faces made their way down to the main foyer and right in front of a massive LCD screen with the show’s poster. Fans stopped in bunches to grab photos to commemorate their night out before heading into the Dear District courtyard. The pouring rain couldn’t dampen anyone’s mood either. Young adults jumped in puddles and the bars across the way started to fill up again.
Hard to believe it was a Tuesday night in Milwaukee, but the passion and spirit of rock ‘n roll was alive and well. Disturbed proved why they are routinely filling arenas across the country. Performance-based and theatric showmanship resoundingly keeps audiences coming back. Safe to say, the band from just down the highway are masters of their craft.
Check out our Disturbed concert photo gallery below:
Comments