Tour Review: Bound By The Road Tour With DevilDriver, Death Angel, Winds Of Plague & The Agonist

The Bound by the Road Tour 2017 is a 5 band affair featuring DevilDriver, Death Angel, Winds of Plague, The Agonist and Azreal. It had plenty of stops in the USA and had 2 stops in Canada which I was lucky enough to attend the one in Toronto Ontario at The Phoenix Concert Theater (formerly known as The Diamond) and it holds up to 1,350 people. 

Unfortunately, Azreal was unable to make it to the Canadian dates of the tour, so on this night The Agonist was up first. The Agonist opened up the night with good energy playing all the songs I was hoping to hear. A few of the songs they played were “The Villain”, “The Anchor And The Sail” and “Gates Of Horn And Ivory”. To my surprise, they played some Alissa White-Gluz era Agonist material as well. I was under the impression they didn’t play any of those songs, so it was a sweet surprise. One of the older songs they played was “You’re Coming with Me” which really got the crowd motivated. As a whole the crowd was pretty good and reacted well to every act from opener to headliner.

Winds of Plague brought the heavy to this show. If there was a point in the night I had to say it was most aggressive, it was during their set. I didn’t know a lot of their music prior to this show but the songs they did play were pretty good. “Refined in the Fire” was hands down the highlight of their set. The singer literally jumped from the stage to the barricade right in front of me without warning and started screaming this song. As much as it scared the crap out of me, it was pretty damn cool. A few other songs they played were “Decimate the Weak” and “One Body to Many”. The bodies were moshing and coming over the barricade at a good rate. Security handled the crowd surfers well which isn’t always the case so that was good to see.

The next band up was Death Angel. When they hit the stage, the energy was surreal. I couldn’t believe how tight instrumentally they were and the singer was going absolutely crazy. I had never seen this band before so my first thought is “goddamn this is amazing”. The singer after 2 songs into their set gave the crowd the sad news that he got an unfortunate phone call earlier that morning. His grandmother had passed away and was dedicating the show to her. Explains his level of energy. The band and crowd fed off each other their whole set. It was incredible. They played “Father of Lies” and it was the highlight of their set for me. They also played “Claws in so Deep” and “The Moth” to name a couple more.

Queue the lights. The headliner DevilDriver hit the stage and man oh man do they just slay the whole night. Opening up with “End Of The Line” and closing with “Meet The Wretched”, the hits just kept on rolling between them. “Sail”, “Not All Who Wander Are Lost” and “Ruthless” just to name a few more. They play every song you think they would and dominate every single one of them. Front man Dez Fafara is a straight to the point front man. He talked to the crowd on the minimal side of things and just kept kicking our asses song after song. Not to mention Dez’s sweet dance moves he does on stage. Very entertaining. The crowd surfers were coming over in droves, at a relentless pace, for this whole set.