Threat To Survival Tour
October 30, 2015
The Maverick Center – Salt Lake City, UT
It was a rough five years for Ben Burnley from personal illness to the lawsuit from his former bands mates. However this didn’t stop Burnley to continue Breaking Benjamin, a clean start with four new faces and the release of a new album. Dark Before Dawn was released on June 23, 2015. The album received a great responses from both old & new fans. It reached No. 1 spot on Billboard Top 100 in the first week of its release.
Breaking Benjamin rolled through Salt Lake City Utah co-headling with Shinedown at The Maverick Center on October 30. To kick things off, they began playing Failure from their new album. For the fans, this was their first glimpse of the new line up of band member. Joining Burnley were guitarists Keith Wallen and Jasen Rauch. Also, Aaron Bruch on bass and Shaun Foist on drums.
The atmosphere had lit higher than it was before when they played mini covers of Imperial March from Starwars to Schism, Smells Like Teen Spirit and Walk. After the band had played Polyamorous, Burnley had asked if he could do something that he wanted to do, which was something he hadn’t done before. He wanted everyone to join him and put the flash lights on their phone. Then asked the entire house lights to be turned off. Next thing you see, hundreds of cell phone lights brighting the whole place as Burnley spoked, “You fucking lit this place up yourself! We don’t feel alone, we don’t feel scared and we have hope cause you’re shining that fucking light. Salt Lake City thank you so much!”. As the fans roared, they played Give Me A Sign with everyone’s cell phone lit in the air and swayed together as one. Before ending the night, Burnley wanted to his share his dream as teenager, “I wanted to be on that fucking stage so bad. We thank each and everyone of you guys who had made our dreams fucking come true. We fucking love you!”. Then he had invited random lucky fans to join the band on stage as they closed with The Diary Of Jane.
Breaking Benjamin definitely put up a performance like no other band. They had excellent stage presence as they had their own way of entertaining and interacting with the crowd throughout the night. It was amazing to see how much the band cared about their loyal fans after these years. You do not want to miss out seeing this extraordinary band live, it was definitely worth the wait.
Daisy Beltran
