HALESTORM @ Baltimore Soundstage, Baltimore, Maryland, USA 31/12/2012

Photos and report by Jesse StClair

New Years Eve has long been a day of celebration and parties. Everybody knows about the massive countdown in Times Square, New York, but the true party was 3 hours south in a small club in Baltimore, Maryland. Halestorm headlined the Baltimore Soundstage on New Year’s Eve to a sold out crowd of 1000 people.

The show was no ordinary concert, but rather a celebration of Halestorm’s past, present and future. The night was divided up into two sections: Light and Acoustic as well as Dark and Electric. The first part of the show was the acoustic set. There was no intro music, the lights simply turns on and Lzzy Hale (vocalist, guitarist) walked onstage followed closely behind by the rest of the band. Everybody was dressed in white, and Lzzy even had on a long white gown. Almost right away, the band started playing “I’m Not an Angel” off their first album. Lzzy’s powerhouse voice easy soared in the acoustic arrangements, with not a crack or flaw to be heard. Most bands soften their songs for acoustic sets, but not Halestorm. The band left after a few songs, leaving Lzzy alone onstage. Halestorm Rocked harder than most bands out there. Arjay (Lzzy’s younger brother and the band’s drummer) furiously pounded away on the Cajon drum box while his sister belted and screamed to a cover of Heart’s “All I Want to Do Is Make Love to You”. The band cleared the stage aside from Lzzy and Joe (the other guitarist). They talked about the old days of Halestorm where they would perform for hours in small bars. They launched into a favourite of theirs back then, a beautiful cover of The Bee Gee’s “To Love Somebody” with just the two of them. Joe then left the stage leaving Lzzy alone. She told a humorous story about drinking an entire bottle of wine by herself and recording a song on her record label’s voicemail which turned out to be “Hate It When You See Me Cry”, which she performed on her own in a beautiful, stripped down arrangement. She then went over to the metal plated piano and played “A Rose in December” which is a song she wrote when she was 16 years old, and Halestorm was in its early days. That wasn’t the only rarity in the acoustic set, in fact, most of this section was comprised of older songs, beautiful covers, and newer ballads which typically don’t fit into Halestorm’s rocking shows.

When Halestorm returned to the stage for the second segment, the Dark and Electric portion of the show, gone were the white gowns and attire and were replaced with black leather jackets, sunglasses and an overall sleek rockstar look. Once again, without any intro music, they dived straight into “Mz Hyde”, which possibly is their heaviest song to date. It was quite a contrast from the acoustic set. Despite playing both guitar and singing, Lzzy found the time to run around the stage in her massive stilettos, a task no male rockstar could ever accomplish. Behind her on drums, her Brother Arjay was putting on quite the show. He kept making funny faces and sticking his tongue out at his sister. At one point, he was twirling his drumstick up in the air while using only 1 drumstick to do the part that typically both sticks were needed for.

A few minutes to midnight, Lzzy stopped the band to talk about all the wonderful things that have happened to the band in the last year, which included a Grammy Nomination, being on the Television Show Glee among many other thing. When Midnight struck, the crowd was showered in falling balloons and was sprayed with champagne by Arjay. Lzzy and Arjay’s mother came onstage for hugs and champagne. After the balloons had settled, Halestorm launched into “Here’s to Us”, a song about celebrating the past and looking to the future. It was the perfect pick to ring in 2013 with. But the show wasn’t over there, Halestorm had just begin and continued to play well into the new year.

The Highlight of the Electric set was a very lengthy drum solo by Arjay. It started out like a normal drum solo, until Arjay threw the drumsticks away and continued the solo with his hands. He then pulled out two massively oversized drumsticks that were longer than his arms and continued drumming. It was comedic, but at the same time, also very skilled. After he finished with the solo, he made the crowd cheer “Arjay has a Mangina” until his sister came back on stage and took the microphone away from him.

Halestorm played 27 songs in total between the two sets and the encore. Despite a very long set, the band didn’t miss a beat and Lzzy’s voice didn’t miss a note. When the concert finished, everybody was exhausted, covered in sweat and singing nothing but praises for the band rocked them into the new year, and into a fresh start.

Setlist

1. I’m Not an Angel,
2. Beautiful With You
3. All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You (Heart cover)
4. To Love Somebody (Bee Gees cover) [Lzzy and Joe Only]
5. Hate It When You See Me Cry [Lzzy Only]
6. Rose in December [Lzzy Only]
7. In Your Room
8. Gold Dust Woman (Fleetwood Mac cover)
9. Better Sorry Than Safe

1. Mz. Hyde
2. Love Bites (So Do I)
3. Freak Like Me
4. Here’s To Us (First Song of the New Year)
5. Dirty Work
6. Out Ta Get Me (Guns N’ Roses cover)
7. Daughters of Darkness
8. Innocence
9. Dissident Aggressor (Judas Priest cover)
10. Rock Show
11. Break In [Lzzy Only]
12. Familiar Taste of Poison
13. Drum Solo [Arjay Only]
14. Slave to the Grind (Skid Row cover)
15. You Call Me a Bitch Like It’s a Bad Thing
16. It’s Not You
17. I Get Off (Encore)
18. I Miss the Misery (Encore)

Links

MySpace * Facebook * Twitter * Site

And now watch some nice pics from the show here below in the gallery!