An opener is an opener, and as such, they don’t have a whole lot of time to effectively rock out an audience. But for a band like Chiodos, they could rock out an audience in mere seconds. So the chance to play at least a half an hour is a bonus.

With their new release, Illuminaudio, they have way more music than would fit in 30 minutes for their opening spot on Atreyu’s tour. But for old and new fans alike, they chose the perfect set list – serious perfection.

Starting everything off was one of their craziest numbers coming from Bone Palace Ballet – “The Undertaker’s Thirst For Revenge Is Unquenchable”. The intro alone begs the question why they don’t open with this song for every tour. Now, granted the violins are a favorite element to the song, but on stage the members naturally have to make up for this absence and they do so by going even more insane on the guitars. Jason Hale (lead guitar) shows off his talent within the first 45 seconds (told you).

For the new album they threw out “Caves,” which shows up in first place on the CD. It’s a great example of the direction new vocalist Brandon Bolmer is going to take the band. This song shows the perfect level of soft vocals, mixed with chaotic gut-wrenches that Brandon has already seemed to master. The guitar work smooths out to a less-hard alternative and to more of an alt-rock. In other words, the chord progressions are distinct and beautifully written. The drums, however, remain textbook Chiodos and basically so fast you’re not sure how Tanner Wayne does it.

“For this next one, we’re gonna do an older number.” With that, Bradley Bell does his thing on the ivories and Brandon starts off with “listen up sweetie, we all know that you’re a beautiful girl in this horrible world." Eventually the rest of the band joins in for and “older” number: “Is It Progression If A Cannibal Uses A Fork?” If Bone Palace Ballet is now considered an “older” album, then selections from All’s Well That Ends Well are going to be quickly fading. However, if it’s in exchange for songs like this, then I’m OK. While the intro for this song is a complete 180 from the other Ballet number, it’s still a song with such dramatics that it needs to be in every show. Not as much harmonizing in vocals this time, but the harmonies the keys create with lead guitar are pretty freaking awesome. It’s not often that you find a song where everyone can sing along while they head bang. Normally it’s one or the other.

A couple more new numbers made it into the set before closing up shop: “Stratovolcanic Mouth” and “Love Is Like A Cat From Hell”. But remember, this set was perfect. Therefore it still needed one more song for the evening to be complete and that song was “The Word’s ‘Best Friend’ Become Redefined”. Jason does his thing in the beginning, just like that in the first song of the night, but this time it all eventually fades out to just Bradley and his keyboard. This was a song that Craig Owens did extremely well. It requires a wide voice range. Even though Brandon wasn’t on the same range as Craig, he still did his version and it came out great. The reason this song is incredible live is at about 1:50 when some rock guitar powers through. A few moments later, the song morphs from head banging synchronized bass beats to a well placed hip-hop groove and the words “if your stomach feels weak, then my work here is done”. This same hip-hop groove makes its way into a few songs on the new album and it’s still awesome.