PIERCE THE VEIL NORTH AMERICA 2025

One of the telltale signs of summer is shows happening at the Budweiser Stage in Toronto, soon to be a 365-day-a-year venue. This lakeside open-air venue, which is the largest in Toronto, is generally open from May until October, of course, weather permitting. Pierce The Veil went out of their way to include a date on the massive I Can’t Hear You World Tour, giving the young, predominantly female audience this night a special outing, and for some, hopefully not the only concert they will go to.

DJ DANGERCAT

The Budweiser Stage for years has had a side stage (formerly the River Bar, now the Corona Oasis Bar) for bands and DJs to open the show. With the doors open, unfortunately timing was not on my side, and I completely missed this act, but I will make an effort to see them when and if they are playing Toronto again.

BEACH WEATHER

Not much room in the photo pit tonight, as Pierce The Veil brought some heavy-duty speakers that made walking and taking photos in the pit for this night absolutely cumbersome. Opening up this night, Beach Weather stormed the stage, and I personally jumped out of my skin with the first note of the song and 2016 single ‘Chit Chat.’ This band was loud, both visually bright and sharp musically. Online research says that this band is Indie rock as a genre, but throughout the performance, I was infatuated with the punk elements being sprinkled into the mix of the music. This band was full of energy despite the lack of beach weather in Toronto on this evening and night, complete in an almost uniform appearance with the band being draped in red, white, black, and rhinestones. The string section really leads the charge for this band, and reading online, the drummer and the keyboardist are touring members. The homogeneous setup of clothing had me fooled in the best way possible. Not knowing this band in advance, or any band for this night, this performance was full of melody on a very little amount of music that’s been released due to a hiatus that lasted five years. The short but intense set got the incoming rain-soaked crowd tuned up for the night to come and a very special appearance with the next band!

Setlist
‘Chitchat’, ‘Unlovable’, ‘High in Low Places’, ‘Hardcore Romance’,
‘Seth Cohen’, ‘Tulips’, ‘Swoon’, ‘Sex, Drugs, Etc.’

SLEEPING WITH SIRENS

Before the band even started, “we” in the photo pit had a security breach, which had the security staff members in a frenzy going back and forth even before we got into the pit or the band started. The special guest? A squirrel, a reminder that anything can happen at an outdoor venue. A ruckus was being made in the venue just two minutes before the band hit the stage, and with a burst of energy as well, with fewer members than the previous band, this band felt impossibly louder, by a handful of decibels. Cruising through the set, this band had to have set a record with the amount of jumps the three members not tied to a drum kit did over the performance. I would bet money as well that if the drummer had a break, he would jump as well. With the most recent album being released in 2022, this setlist would have made early-day fans of this band very happy, playing songs from six out of the seven albums listed and only one song from the most recent album. The vocalist’s banter was spot on, very engaging with the crowd, even pointing out certain concertgoers in costumes, both mentioning them and telling the crowd to give it their all. By the time this band left the stage, the almost sold-out crowd was ready for the main event.


Setlist
‘Kick Me’, ‘Leave It All Behind’, ‘Tally It Up: Settle the Score’, ‘A Trophy Father’s Trophy Son’,
‘Go, go, go’, ‘Better Off dead’, ‘Scene Five: With Ears to See and Eyes to Hear’,
‘Bloody Knuckles’, ‘Do It Now, Remember It Later’,
‘If I’m James Dean, you’re Audrey Hepburn’, ‘If You Can’t Hang’

PIERCE THE VEIL

Getting into the photo pit, with the squirrel removed well before our arrival, the venue was met with the classic black curtain covering up all the stage setup in between. Just before the curtain dropped, we were greeted by an intro song by Vicente Fernández called El Rey, which translates to “the king.” As is tradition when I’m in the photo pit and a song like this comes on, I grab a photographer I know and have a dance(this song is a staple of ranchera and traditional Mexican music for context). After the short intro song finished, the curtain dropped, and we were met with seven pillars on a forty-five-degree bend and “stadium lights,” absolutely a huge feel to this band almost instantly. Also large in size, and I can’t stress this enough, this crowd is in the top five loudest and most vocal crowds I’ve ever been in the middle of, and maybe it wasn’t so much a volume situation as it was a pitch/frequency? This band took the energy from the previous two bands, which was sure not to be matched, and completely sent the intensity off the charts, to the point where so many people were coming over from crowd surfing that our photo session was just over two songs long. Pierce The Veil brought out the most well-rounded setlist I’ve seen a headlining band pull off. With almost two decades and five albums released, the band played an equal amount of songs, except for Collide with the Sky, which got two more songs than the other albums. Repeating myself as well, there was something about this crowd, and the band acknowledged that from the get, as both parties were trading vocal tasks with both electric and acoustic songs. Being in the crowd for the acoustic song was absolutely deafening with earplugs; the sheer power and volume of the audience united to sing was something I’ve never experienced before. a wonderful balance of everything, and if they keep this setlist for the rest of the world tour, this is a playlist that will make any crowd and diehard fans around the world happy.

Setlist
‘Intro – El Rey (Vicente Fernandez Cover)’, ‘Death of an Executioner’,
‘Bulls in the Bronx’, ‘Pass the Nirvana’, ‘I’m Low on Gas and You Need a Jacket (Partial; last chorus was not played)’, ‘I’d Rather Die Than Be Famous’,
‘Where Is My Mind? (Pixies cover) (Snippet)’, ‘Floral & Fading’,
‘Yeah Boy and Doll Face’, ‘She Makes Dirty Words Sound Pretty’,
‘Today I Saw the Wholed (Cut off before the bridge)’,
‘Wonderless’, ‘Hell Above’, ‘Caraphernalia’,
‘Emergency Contact (Dedicated to his wife)’, ‘Circles’