Photos by Samantha Skapin

After racing back home from an eventful weekend in Columbus last Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending The Dear Hunter’s Final Act Tour at Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland. They had support from the always incredible band, Eisley.

Now, The Dear Hunter always seems to roll through the Akron area when they tour, so it was nice to have a switch of venue this time around. The room was already packed to the back when I had arrived just before Eisley had begun, which was great to see. I am honestly a pretty big fan when it comes to Eisley, so I was so excited to see them again after seeing them at the House of Blues a couple of years ago. They opened with the song “Lion”, following with “Currents“, which is from their latest release in 2013 called Currents. With Stacy King preparing for a baby and working on her side project Sucre, Sherri Dupree-Bemis has taken over a majority of the vocals with her sister Christie. Both Sherri and Christie (who is also in the band Merriment with drummer, Remington Dupree) sounded incredible together, harmonizing and sounding like literal angels. They played a couple of older songs, including “Golly Sandra”, and their hit “Smarter“, but also snuck in a single they released a week prior called “Defeatist” from their forthcoming album (which sounds great).  Sherri was so delightful and stopped between a couple of songs to thank the crowd for coming and listening to them, which was very humbling to see. They closed with their song, “Shelter” with huge smiles on their faces, and a perfect fit to end their set. This band is so humble and kind and such a pleasure to watch play, and I would highly recommend seeing them and listening to their new single to prepare for the new album!

Up next was the band the packed room was all anxiously awaiting to take stage; The Dear Hunter. This would be my fourth time seeing The Dear Hunter, and it’s always such a pleasure to see these guys as they never fail to put on a great show. They opened with a song off of their new album  Act V: Hymns with the Devil in Confessional called “The March” and it was honestly astounding. The band almost seemed to have a new hard and mean swagger about them opening with this song. They followed up with another new song, and even though this album had just been released weeks before, the dedicated crowd knew every single word. Casey Crescenzo would stop in between a couple of the songs to joke with the crowd, and he definitely could have a career as a comedian if he tried. There was even a point where he made a song up on the fly with keyboard player Gavin Castleton and guitarist Robert Parr about cutting into an avocado (which was strange but they totally pulled it off). They even had a disco ball playing for a couple of the songs in the set including “Saved“, which added an extra layer of finesse to the song. They played a lot from their newest album, seeing it is the Final Act (hence the name of the tour), but they also played songs from past acts/albums such as “He Said He Had A Story” from Act II: Life and Death and “Waves” off of their last album, Act IV: Rebirth and Reprise. Every act tells a story, so it’s amazing to see them tell this story live, and I would recommend reading into the story because of how intricate it is . They closed with one of their most popular songs from Act 3, “Life and Death” which was fitting to close out the era of the life and death of the man Casey referred to all the way in the beginning in “Battesimo Del Fuoco”. Seeing as I’ve already seen these guys play quite a lot live, i’m a little biased, but The Dear Hunter never ceases to amaze me. So if I were you, I would definitely check these guys out live and listen to all of the acts including their latest and final act, Act V: Hymns with the Devil in Confessional, and wait for what’s to come next from this band, because it’s going to be incredible.