Faith No More
April 22, 2015
The Wiltern- Los Angeles, CA
After initially breaking up in 1998, San Francisco rockers Faith No More embarked on their first USA tour since playing a few shows in 2009. Along with the tour, they will release their seventh album titled Sol Invictus (Latin for Unconquered Sun) on May 19, 2015 making this their first album in 18 years! Faith No More made three stops at The Wiltern in Los Angeles, California for a fun and entertaining night.
The first of three nights at The Wiltern was a SOLD OUT show. While fans waited for Faith No More to come on stage, they were entertained by DJ Mexican Dubweiser whom did remixes of Mexican and rock songs with a dubstep twist. At 10pm, the lights went out and the crowd turned their full attention to the stage as they cheered and chanted “Faith No More! Faith No More! Faith No More!” The band members came on stage and the lights came back on to reveal the stage being covered with an array of flower arrangements and the band members themselves to be wearing white garments. They started their set with the first single from the new album, Motherfucker. The song had a nice opening vibe to it so it fit perfectly as an opener. After that, they started playing their hits as they continued with From Out Of Nowhere. By then, the crowd had fully awakened and were getting loud and crazy. After a few tunes, they played their most famous song, Epic which earned the #54 spot on MTV’s 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs. The crowd sang along to “You want it all, but you can’t have it!” as well as head-banged and danced. Just as they finished playing Get Out, the band paused and let the crowd sing the final verse of the song as the band watched in awe. For the band members being in their late 40’s and early 50’s, they still put on an entertaining and energetic show and still maintain their traditional sound of a mix of 
heavy metal, funk, and rock. Frontman Mike Patton still pulls of his screams and vocals as if age hasn’t phased him one bit.
The stage lights were impressive as they used strobe lights of red, orange, blue, purple, white and green. They also had a huge curtain in the background which helped intensify the lights and give them a brighter look. For the rest of their setlist, it contained mainly old material with a few new tunes. Older songs such as: Midlife Crisis, Ashes To Ashes, Caffeine, and King For A Day all brought back memories to Faith No More’s older fans from back in their day. As anticipation for their new album, Faith No More also played some new tracks like Superhero, Sunny Side Up, Matador, and the title track Sol Invictus. Patton would bring out his traditional megaphone to sing part of one song. One of the best songs of the night had to be the cover of The Commodores’ Easy. The band brought down a disco ball from above the stage and lit it up while the song went on and the crowd all sang in unison for the chorus, “I’m Easy like Sunday morning” Patton announced they had one more song to play and he was met by a barrage of boos from the crowd. While he was at it, Patton let the Los Angeles fans know that he could leave early and watch the Los Angeles Dodgers “as usual” be defeated by the San Francisco Giants. The obvious Dodgers fans verbally told off Patton in retaliation which was quite hilarious to listen to. They finished their set with the new song Superhero, but just as people thought the show was over, Faith No More comes back out to play an encore of three songs starting with Sol Invictus and following with another new track, Separation Anxiety. The final song of the night would be the Burt Bacharach cover This Guy’s In Love with You and once again, the band brought down the disco ball. The band said their goodbyes and left stage and soon the lights came back on with the attendees starting to leave the venue. Then out of nowhere, the lights turned back off and everyone looked confused and turned to the stage to see that the band came back out once again. Bassist Billy Gould let the crowd know that they had time for one more song and would treat LA to the live debut of the new song Black Friday. Once the band finished, they tossed picks and drumsticks to the crowd and for the third time, bid farewell to the crowd. The future of Faith No More remains unclear as to whether they’ll continue making new music or if this is a one-time tour so just to be safe, this is not a tour to be missed by fans of the band.
Review by: Misael Ruiz
