A Day to Remember sends fans into a frenzy at the War Memorial
A Day to Remember sends Syracuse fans into a frenzy
Prefaced by bands Beartooth and I Prevail, Florida-based band A Day to Remember took the stage Tuesday night at the War Memorial Arena behind a billowing curtain, heightening the crowd’s anticipation.
Hoards of fans flocked to the Oncenter Tuesday night to see their set, pushing as close as they could to the barricade, vying for a better view of the stage. As the shuffling in the audience began to settle, the band struck an opening chord of “The Downfall of Us All” off of 2009’s Homesick and near pandemonium erupted.
A person in a shark costume was the first of a steady stream of crowd surfers to be catapulted over the metal barricade. In the midst of the chaos – flashing lights, shaking bass, aggressive melodies – security continued to reach into the swarming mosh pit and rescue people floundering.
ADTR launched into a set of fan favorites with “Better Off This Way,” off of their 2011 album What Separates Me From You before transitioning into the more recent “Rescue Me,” off of DJ Marshmello’s album Joytime III. Inflatable beach balls were released into the crowd and rainbow lights flashed across the stage.
After a few high-energy tracks for fans to thrash about, ADTR slowed things down with “Have Faith in Me,” which shifted the show to more of a sentimental vibe with several people rising above the crowd atop people’s shoulders, closing their eyes, waving their hands in the air and singing along under the dimmed lights.
And then ADTR shifted back to the frenzy with newer tracks to promote an upcoming album and free merchandise sprayed across the crowd with T-shirt cannons.
During the particularly upbeat “Sometimes You’re the Hammer, Sometimes You’re the Nail,” lead vocalist Jeremy McKinnon jumped off the stage and perched on the barricade to be close with the audience. Fans climbed on top of each other, desperate to even brush McKinnon’s fingertips, and one crowd surfer even grabbed McKinnon’s hand as they sang the song together.
“How many people here grew up listening to heavy metal?” McKinnon asked the crowd, and he was met with an abundance of cheers and hands in the air. He encouraged the mosh pit to open up in the middle of the crowd as he transitioned into playing what seemed to be the ending song: “I’m Made of Wax, Larry, What Are You Made Of?”
But even after the song ended and the arena went pitch black, the crowd shouted “encore” and began shaking the stands with the stomping of their feet.
Eventually, McKinnon returned to the stage with the other band members to play an acoustic rendition of “If It Means A Lot to You,” which still ranks as the band’s most played song on Spotify, before closing out with ”All Signs Point to Lauderdale” and “The Plot to Bomb the Panhandle.”
ADTR was done, the arena lights flashed on and the crowd continued jumping together in unison as the stagehands started tearing down the set.
The unwavering ADTR faithful began to file out of the War Memorial onto the downtown Syracuse streets. They whooped and hollered as they retreated out of the snow to their cars, keeping the energy from the show going beyond the show.
is a contributing photographer and reporter for The NewsHouse in the multimedia, photography and design master’s program. When she’s not taking photos or writing about pop culture, she’s trying the latest vegan recipe she found on Instagram.
