Story of The Year are a post hardcore band from St Louis that combine anthemic choruses, metal inspired riffs and larynx shredding screaming. I saw these guys perform at Taste of Chaos a number of years ago, and like everyone else, I was blown away by their amazing energy, catchy songs and acrobatic maneuvers. With a couple more albums and a bunch of  world tours since then, I was interested to see how SOTY would compare this time.

Saosin seemed to be a good choice for support band as they were well received by the crowd. They are in the same "screamo" vein as the headliners and performed a high energy set. My only criticisms would be that the music tended to sound a bit messy and Cove Reber's vocals were borderline off key throughout the set.

The crowd had worked itself into quite the frenzy by the time the boys from SOTY appeared on stage. Starting the set with a song off their most recent LP, The Constant, the band then tore through songs off their previous three releases. Throughout all this the crowd didn't miss a beat; jumping, clapping and pumping fists when instructed to by charismatic front man, Dan Marsala. 

There may not have been any back flips or flying guitars, but the band were still in fine form. "Anthem For Our Dying Day" and "Our Time Is Now" were two crowd favourites (although it would have been nice if the guitar was up in the mix for the latter). 

All in all, Story Of The Year are a band that know their strengths and definitely play to them. However, there was a tendency for some of the songs to sound similar, as the band  haven't strayed far from their signature  sound on any of their albums (this was especially obvious with the use of an unaccompanied sing along in pretty much every song). 

This aside, SOTY put on quite the spectacle tonight and judging from the audiences response, will be doing it all again in the not so distant future.