REVIEW: Intervals, Hail The Sun at Irving Plaza | 04.05.2024

Intervals and Hail The Sun are entering the home stretch of their co-headlining North American tour which kicked off in Indianapolis last month. The bands, joined on the tour by Body Thief and Makari, kicked off the weekend with a performance in front of a packed Irving Plaza in Manhattan last Friday.

In what has become an undesirable trend over the past week, I was late to the show and missed both opening acts. If you'll allow me to step onto my soapbox for a moment: for the life of me, I do not understand why it is so difficult for there to be consistency and clarity around showtimes on ticketing platforms.

Some platforms, like DICE, do a great job with this information. Sometimes you'll even receive an email on the day of the show that includes the set times for all of the bands. Platforms like Live Nation on the other hand simply list one time, which is most often (but not always) when doors open. Helpful I guess, but when does the show start? Finding the answer will require investigative work.

In the case of this show I knew I was running late and would miss Makari, but felt confident I'd get there just in time for Body Thief. Upon arrival I was surprised to find that the show had started 30 minutes earlier than I had thought. I arrived just in time to watch Body Thief play their last song. The song was great and the crowd was loving it, and then it was over. Just like that, it was time for the headliners.

Hail The Sun took the stage first to the roar of the Irving Plaza crowd, the cheers becoming screams when the band launched into "Maladapted." Frontman Donovan Melero wasted no time launching his mic stand into the air whipping the cable as the song's energy flowed through him.

The fans were pulled to Hail The Sun's musical magnetic fields, crowd surfing toward the stage with arms outstretched to grab Melero's hand. "I think this is the rowdiest New York City crowd we've ever experienced!" Melero noted at one point during the set.

The band played their newest single, "Secondary Worship" much to my delight as I've had that song on repeat since its release in March. "This one goes out to every therapist I’ve ever had," Melero said before introducing the next song on the setlist, "60-Minute Session Blocks."

From the looks of it, Hail The Sun were playing their own part as therapist; the crowd embraced the band's performance as a prolific catharsis, singing along to every word with unbridled passion. Hail The Sun closed with "Human Target Practice" and brought the energy in the room to a fever pitch just in time to pass the baton to metal maestros Intervals.

I had the pleasure of catching Intervals' performance at Irving Plaza last year while they were touring with Tesseract. They commanded the room that night as openers; returning now on their very first headlining tour they did just the same.

The band opened with their new single, "Neurogenesis." Equally as entertaining as watching every member display an incredible talent for their craft is seeing just how much fun they're having together while they perform. The tide of crowd surfers from Hail The Sun died down and were replaced by waves of heads nodding and banging to the rhythm.

"I’m not gonna talk a lot, I’m gonna let you keep the energy up," Aaron Marshall said to the crowd between songs. The fans had no problem doing just that as they jammed along to Intervals' career-spanning setlist, which closed with a performance of another brand new song, "Nootropic."

Intervals and Hail The Sun's tour will continue through the end of this week where it will come to a close at the House of Blues in Chicago. Hail The Sun will head to Europe this summer for a string of dates while Intervals will be back on the road in the U.S. a few weeks to support Mammoth WVH.

PHOTOGRAPHER'S NOTES

HAIL THE SUN

• Donovan Melero is all over the stage with energy from the very start and does a lot of tricks with his mic stand. Don't feel like you have to grab the shots the first time he does it if you're focused on another member as he'll definitely do it a few more times.
• Melero climbed onto and jumped off the bass drum twice during the set, once while I was in the pit and the second while I was shooting from the house. It happens quick so if you want that action shot, be watching out for him to do this. I wasn't fast enough either time, unfortunately.
• Shooting the rest of the band didn't pose any real challenges; they were putting a lot of energy into their performance so it made my job easy.
• The lighting won't give you too much trouble when shooting but the colors gave me some challenges in post; the extent of which will depend on your editing style.
• Given the amount of passionate chaos happening on stage, I found more success shooting from the crowd so that I could more accurately capture the intensity

INTERVALS

• Same deal here with the lighting; there was plenty of light but I had to play around with the colors in post a bit more
• A major advantage of an instrumental act is that you don't have to keep a frontman or frontwoman in your peripheral at all times – spend time focused on capturing each member to ensure you have more than a few quality shots of everyone
  • Personally I didn't take enough advantage of that opportunity and wish I had experimented a bit more as opposed to just getting the more standard shots

HAIL THE SUN

INTERVALS