Starset, Palisades, Grabbitz, Year of the Locust
Immersion: Part 1
February 20th, 2018
The Bourbon Theater
Lincoln, Nebraska
Starset’s current headlining tour, appropriately titled Immersion: Part 1, truly is an all-encompassing experience. Along for the duration of the tour are Palisades, Grabbitz, and Year of the Locust.
Starset’s VIP Experience included a four-song acoustic set, and meet and greet with the band. If you’ve never heard the band’s music in an acoustic setting, you’re missing out. To hear their music fully electric is an exceptional experience. For the band to craft acoustic versions of their rock/metal music is truly a sign of musical genius.
As fans started packing the main floor, the show was ready to begin.
Hailing from New York, Year of the Locust opened the show with their style of classic party/anthem rock. Solo artist Nick Chiari, better known by his stage name Grabbitz, followed. Addressing the crowd, Grabbitz told several hundred screaming fans that he’s “not a DJ or a band, but this is the only way I can perform my music.” Grabbitz’ 8 song set got the crowd bouncing, even though very few had ever heard his music, especially during his final song of the evening, My Cloud. He’d recently debuted the track, written with Joel “deadmou5” Zimmerman.
Palisades followed and, after some technical issues with vocalist Louis Miceli’s microphone, did an amazing job ramping up the crowd’s already heightened energy. The New Jersey natives have developed a hard-earned and well-deserved reputation as road warriors who spend most of their lives on tour.
After a brief intermission, the house lights dimmed, and an eerie fog crept across the stage. As soon as the Launch Sequence intro ended, and the opening beats of Satellite played. As the band entered the stage, blinding flashes of light and sound assault your senses. The thunderous approach of Frequency shifted into Gravity of You and immersed the crowd in a reality of what is and what should be. Each chord struck by the band during Last to Fall and Die for You reminded us that we are alive.
The intensity of Starset’s live shows, or Demonstrations, is nearly beyond words. Each of your senses is set upon with a grandiloquent commemoration. The visuals from Immersion: Part 1, coupled with the band’s indicative music, raise the expectations of what a live concert should be.
Stars dying in a massive supernova that is Point of No Return, pivoted as the gravity of the galactic phenomenon that is Telescope pulled our atoms through a wormhole, only to reform us during It Has Begun as a greater whole on the other side of the Universe. Our mission as members of the Starset Society was heralded by the churning vocals of Carnivore.
Putting a new spin on a few fan favorites off of the band’s sophomore release, Vessels, Violin and Cello took center stage for unplugged performances of Telepathic and Starlight. Lasers danced off of the smoke that filled the theater, and several hundred fans swayed and sang along to every word.
Picking up the tempo with the immensely popular Monster, the band focused on shifting into the heavier side of their catalogue with Unbecoming and Ricochet. Another sing-along emerged during Down With the Fallen, and the entire theatre was pulsating for a multidimensional rendition of Bringing It Down.
Closing their set with My Demons, over a faux cacophony of fans screaming each word, founder and vocalist Dustin Bates thanked the fans for their support and promised a return to Lincoln. The band had played The Bourbon just five months earlier while on tour with Halestorm, making regular stops in the Midwest on each of their tours.
The band’s live shows have become so technical and precise that there is no room for errors. Each note is meticulously played. After Starset’s live show, you will be forever changed. You will never again experience a concert that same way. This is the way music is intended to be.
Starset VIP acoustic setlist:
My Demons
Gravity of You
Halo
Unbecoming
Starset main setlist:
Launch Sequence Intro
Satellite
Frequency
Gravity of You
Last to Fall
Die for You
Point of No Return
Telescope
It Has Begun
Carnivore
Telepathic (unplugged)
Starlight (unplugged)
Monster
Unbecoming
Ricochet
Down With the Fallen
Bringing It Down
My Demons
