Friday night Killswitch Engage headlined a sold out show at the Marquee Theatre in Tempe, supported by The Devil Wears Prada and Dark Tranquility.

Dark Tranquility is a band from Sweden that has been touring to promote their upcoming album “We are The Void”. Although they are good and legends in their progressive metal genre, Dark Tranquility was the most forgettable of the bands of the night.

The Devil Wears Prada was next up. Although The Devil Wears Prada is technically the youngest band of all who played at the show, they seemed to have intense and numerous following at the show. I saw more The Devil Wears Prada shirts than any others. Their performance was intense and the crowd was responding likewise. Playing songs like “Dez Moines” and most recent hit “Assistant to the Regional Manager”. There are few bands that I have seen that when they are playing, you know they believe in what they are singing. The passion in The Devil Wears Prada’s performance was very obvious.  Their performance stole the show in my opinion.

I had high hopes for Killswitch Engage and was excited to see them again. I was not let down. Killswitch Engage had a great stage setup with bright LED lit stage structure and light panels behind the stage made for a visually pleasing performance. The lead singer for Killswitch Engage, Howard Jones had to leave the current tour to take care of some personal issues and Phil Labonte of All That Remains was filling in on vocals. Having a guest fill on vocals would usually take some steam from a performance but that was not the case. Killswitch put on a powerful performance while playing songs off of their new album like “Reckoning” and “Starting Over”. The crowd’s response to the new singer was surprising and it was almost like nothing had changed. The exchange of energy between Philip and the crowd couldn’t have been any better.