Circa Survive @ UPROAR Festival / Klipsch Music Center — Indianapolis on August 23rd, 2013
After an awkward beauty pageant that was presumably meant to hype up the crowd for the show (a failed attempt), Circa Survive walked out onto the main stage to start the night. Once the members had dispersed to their respective positions and fine-tuned their instruments, frontman Anthony Green introduced the band and thanked the audience for coming out. Following immediately after, Green’s high-pitched and unmistakable screams kicked off the band’s first song, “Oh, Hello.” The atmospheric sounds of Frangicetto and Ekstrom’s filtered guitars meshed perfectly with Green’s howling vocals, and echoed throughout the venue.
Over the course of the evening, frontman Green was extremely active, moving from one side of the stage to the other constantly between singing and thrashing to the beat of the music. He was constantly finding quirky ways to wield his microphone, from wrapping the cable around himself during “Holding Someone’s Hair Back” to rubbing it against his beard and, at one point, briefly shoving the entire grill of the microphone into his mouth. It’s a good thing Green was putting on an interesting and eccentric display of energy, because the rest of the band was mostly stagnant during their set. Despite a fantastic performance, the members didn’t show a large amount of enthusiasm, and it reflected in the crowd – scattered, stifled applause was a recurring theme for Circa.
From start to finish, Circa Survive performed their set with finesse and sounded fantastic. Green was very polite and appreciative to the audience, constantly thanking them for coming to the show and “being so nice to us.” He made sure that everybody was having a good time, stopping an argument before the band finished strongly with “Get Out.” Unfortunately however, the majority of the crowd seemed uninterested in the band’s performance. Though Anthony was very active and constantly moving around the stage, the rest of the band lacked the same level of stage presence and energy to rile up show-goers. Perhaps they should’ve had more of the Rockstar energy drinks that Green briefly promoted.