Disturbed in Boston

On Friday, March 14 I had the pleasure of seeing Disturbed in concert at the TD Garden in Boston. Special shoutout to Jim K. for scoring the tickets!!!

This show is part of “The Sickness 25th Anniversary Tour,” which kicked off on February 25th. Surprisingly I had never been to TD Garden, so was really looking forward to seeing a show there.

Opening for Disturbed were Sevendust and Three Days Grace. When we arrived, Sevendust were already playing. I was OK with this as their music doesn’t really work for me and I’ve already seen them a couple other times.

Three Days Grace

After a short break, Three Days Grace came on stage opening up with Animal I Have Become. They had an intense light show that I thought was too intense as the main lights seemed to shine directly into my soul. I had to often look away because they hurt. I did love the lasers that did later on, though.

I thought 3DG sounded pretty good, but there was definitely more mid-range and less bass than I prefer. In fact, Sevendust had way more thump than Three Days Grace did.

Overall, I found the 3DG show to be enjoyable but not very exciting. Both singers (Adam and Matt) pranced around the stage well, but I found their on-stage banter to be cringy. They mostly said generic things that awkwardly tied into the next song.

Soundwise, they were tight. Both Adam and Matt sounded great and the rest of the band played well. I really like their new song, MayDay, which they played about midway through the set.

It was hard to get a good photo of the band due to the insanely bright lights behind them.

Three Days Grace at TD Garden in Boston

Three Days Grace at TD Garden in Boston

Disturbed

The audience got pumped up by the pre-roll video that played before the band came out. Being the 25th anniversary tour, the video showed highlights of the band throughout the years.

After the band came out, Dave was wheeled out in a straightjacket to the front of the stage¹ and then they started in on Voices.

For this show, Disturbed are playing The Sickness in its entirety. It’s always nice when a band does this for an important album.

For me, The Sickness was a good, but not great album. The first four songs are top-tier and I enjoy Shout 2000, but the rest of the album was always just OK for me.

Hearing it live has changed my tune². This album hits hard and they did an amazing job playing it. Certainly the audience went nuts from the first song and hit a crescendo with The Sickness, but everyone was on their feet the entire time.

Disturbed at TD Garden

After they finished playing The Sickness, the banner dropped with the message “we’ll be back in 20 minutes”. They returned to play a small collection of their other hits.

There was an impressive LED display behind the stage that also showcased some impressive fire cannons, especially when they ended the show with Inside the Fire. Bruins and Celtics banners did not get damaged, unlike the Bulls banners that were damaged by their show in Chicago.

Standing for Inside the Fire

Disturbed and their impressive fire cannons

The full “hits” setlist:

• Ten Thousand Fists

• I Will Not Break

• Bad Man

• Land of Confusion

• The Sound of Silence

• The Light

• Inside the Fire

Ten Thousand Fists was a great way to kick things off. I like their new single, I Will Not Break, which is classic Disturbed. I don’t much care for Bad Man, but I suppose they felt they had to play something from their most recent album.

At first I thought Land of Confusion was an odd choice, but they probably thought it fit the current times, which it certainly does. Everyone sang along with The Sound of Silence and The Light, which were wrapped in more thoughtful moments.

Closing with Inside the Fire and the powerful pyrotechnics was a great choice.

Sadly, there were no songs from Believe, Asylum, Immortalized, or Evolution.

Overall this was a wonderful show! I really loved hearing The Sickness in its entirety. Dave’s voice sounded pristine and the band was absolutely amazing. The guitar work was thick, heavy and with the drums rattled your chest, just as it should be.

AirPods Pro 2

I brought standard earplugs to the show along with my AirPods Pro 2. I ended up using the AirPods Pro 2 in transparency mode with Loud Sound Reduction on in the Hearing Protection settings. This worked especially well with Three Days Grace. I did listen to several songs on The Sickness without them to get the full experience, but overall I did not find this concert to be exceptionally loud. The AirPods Pro 2 did a great job of keeping my hearing from getting fatigued and still allowed things to sound really good.

Immediately after the show I had no ill effects. My hearing felt great with no ringing at all. I honestly expected a Disturbed show to be much louder than this and was fully prepared to have to pull out my actual earplugs, like I’ve done at other shows. I think it did help that, although we were directly facing the stage, we were sitting at the complete opposite end and that may have allowed the sound to not be quite as intense.

1. At another point he was walked out to the front of the stage in cuffs as if on death row and “electrocuted”.

2. Not sorry.