Crown The Empire Brings The "Not Dead Yet" Tour to New York City's Irving Plaza

Unfortunately I was unable to make it for Oni and Capstan, but next up was four piece metal band, Dark Divine. Dark Divine is a metalcore band that originated from Orlando, Florida. Members of this band are vocalist Anthony Martinez, bassist Cory "Scissorhands" Piscitelli, guitarist Robby Lynch and lastly drummer Triston Blaize. With their aesthetic, it makes it easy to believe that it is Halloween all year round because of their creepy outfits, creepy contacts and face paint. To show off their spooky aesthetic, they cover their bodies in glow in the dark face paint, and make themselves appear as a skeleton.

As of September, 2023, the band has released their latest album titled 'Deadly Fun' via Thriller Records and will be expecting to have 'Deadly Fun Deluxe' out October of 2024. This past May, Ultraviolet Magazine has done an interview with Anthony Martinez of Dark Divine in discussion of one of their recent single releases "Burn The Witch".

Martinez has given us a little insight of the song and the message that was being delivered, "I mean, the song itself is sort of about like, kind of like a toxic relationship where you are condemning the actions of a partner, but in doing so, you almost... become just as evil as the partner. You kind of take on all the negative stuff that you're so much against. I wanted to kind of like harness that into a song. And I feel like the Salem Witch Trials is a really good kind of like blueprint of that where it's like, they were casting out these girls as witches, burning them at the stake, but they themselves were doing the more evil act. These were just normal, these are normal people. They weren't witches, but they had to die because of the absolute evil act. was you know yeah those who condemned them."

Throughout their set, since they have stepped foot on stage, so many fans were chanting "Dark Divine" and all roared once they began performing. I've seen these guys twice before and if I'm being totally honest, this had to have been the more interactive crowd I've ever seen. So many people on the barricade had their face painted like a skeleton to resemble the theme of the band. As a photographer being in that photo pit, it was challenging to get photos of them because of the amount of crowd surfers that kept coming. The four-piece band has performed songs such as "Digital Numb", "Burn The Witch", "Halloweentown" and many more. Unfortunately while they were playing the breakdown of "The Fear", the speakers in the venue blew out their soundboard so there were a few technical difficulties. To kill time, everybody in the crowd were chanting "Dark Divine", "No Music" and even started to sing "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers. This was an insane show experience to ever witness and I could not be anymore grateful. To close off their set, the band performed "Halloweentown" off their album 'Halloweentown' (2022) via InVogue Records. For fans of Motionless in White and Ice Nine Kills, you are definitely in for a treat!

Lastly, it was time for the headliners to make their way on stage; Crown The Empire. Crown The Empire is a metalcore band based in Dallas, TX. Crown The Empire has been around the scene for over a decade and has been known for their chaotic energy and hard crushing breakdowns. The band consists of vocalist Andrew “Andy Leo” Rockhold, lead guitarist Brandon Hoover, bassist Hayden Tree and drummer Jeeves Avalos. Throughout their career, they have been seen at multiple Warped Tours and have been on the road with many fan favorites, including Set It Off, Asking Alexandria, Motionless In White and many more. The first time I've seen Crown The Empire live was when they were on tour with Asking Alexandria and Black Veil Brides back in 2018 when they came to Terminal 5, NYC. As of recently, the band has released five studio albums with the most recent one being “Dogma” which was released in April 2023. Fans were excited as the latest album had notable features such as Courtney Laplante of Spiritbox and Remington Leith of Palaye Royale.

Fans restlessly awaited Crown The Empire to take the stage. Andy Leo took the stage and immediately kicked the set off with "Initiation" from the album 'The Resistance: Rise of the Runaways', which was released in 2014. Since then, the crowd surfing and mosh pit was absolutely insane to watch and at one point, it was getting very difficult for me to dodge them and for security to catch them. Crown The Empire shows are special as the pits are more chaotic than the average one. The insanity combined with the party-like vibes are infectious.

Second song of the night was "In Another Life" (2023). The lights were flashing and the room got very dark; making it sort of difficult to see. Little did fans know, they were having someone come up to do Courtney LaPlante's feature in the song and that person was the one and only Kasey Karlsen of Deadlands. If you haven't checked out Deadlands, then what are you even doing? Since she stepped foot on stage, I got absolutely demolished in that photo pit. I was not aware of a crowd surfer coming, but next thing I knew, I got crushed into the stage. Looking back, it's pretty funny but in the moment, it hurt so bad and honestly struggled to do daily tasks for a week. If you want to see the video, it will be attached below!

Video Credit: xZ3ROGRAVITYx

At some points throughout their set, they've had to stop the show because fans kept losing their personal belongings. I couldn't stop laughing. At one time, two different people were looking for their stuff. One person lost their wallet and another person lost their phone. Leo said "I just complimented you guys so help give this man back his wallet" then asked for production team to turn the disco ball on for "Millenia". Later in the set as we get closer to the end of the performance, despite my ribs getting crushed, I chose to go into the mosh pit for "Dancing With The Dead" since I am a dedicated fan and that was one of my favorite songs from the latest album. Did I regret it immediately after? Absolutely. Fans were brought to tears once they started playing fan favorite "Machines" and that was when most crowd surfers came. I was tempted but I was too worried about getting dropped! Towards the end of the song, a fan threw the missing wallet onto the stage and as the song ended, Andy said "I have somebody's wallet! Is this the missing one???" and luckily the person who lost it was able to retrieve it back. To conclude the night, they performed "Makeshift Chemistry" from 'The Fallout' (2012), Andy has told fans once the song ended to smoke weed everyday and to have a great night. The whole night was absolutely magical and definitely a night to remember.