Fans lined up outside of the local O.C. venue Chain Reaction for the final California date of the “Fronzilla Party Tour” on Sunday, Oct. 5. This stop of the tour included performances from Shot In The Dark, It Lives It Breathes, Whitney Peyton, Palisades and, of course, Fronzilla.
Once inside the venue, the audience settled in to watch Shot In The Dark perform. Lead singer Jacob Chabot, 14, was one of the youngest people in the venue but that doesn’t reflect in his stage presence.
Singing original songs and a cover of Taylor Swift’s “Shake it off,” it was easy to hear Chabot’s powerful voice that was carrying through the speakers. This local band from the Riverside area was given a warm welcome from the fans in the crowd.
Next in the line-up was the rock band It Lives, It Breathes all the way from Providence, Rhode Island. This five piece band had a set that was filled with energy from start to finish. Frontman, Kevin Lacerda, gets the Chain crowd to put their fist in the air and dance to the beat.
“I want to hear all of you singing along because I know you know this song. It’s ‘Numb’ by Linkin Park,” proclaimed Lacerda, which in fact did get the concert goers to interact more with the It Lives, It Breathes band members.
For their last song, the bass guitar player, Jordan Stevens, handed his bass over to the six-string guitar player, Anthony DiBiase. Stevens sang vocals along side Lacerda while stage diving into the crowd multiple times to finish off their set strong before the next performer took the stage.
Whitney Peyton is described on her Facebook page as a Rap/Hip-Hop performer from the Philadelphia area, which is completely different than the artist that had previously taken the stage. Starting out her set in a hooded outfit only seeing the pink microphone, she made it known to the crowd that she had a fun set coming up.
Peyton is the only female front-woman of the night. When she takes off her jacket, her shirt showed a big L.A. on it. With Anaheim being the only Southern California date on the tour, it was fitting.
“When you bought this ticket, you didn’t know that you were going to perform for me tonight, did you?” said Peyton while she lead the crowd in singing the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” song bringing part of her hometown to the show.
The rest of her set contained outfit changes, crowd surfing and definitely did not lack energy.
Before the next band went on you could hear the crowd buzzing about the next performance. Palisades is a five-piece metalcore band from New Jersey that took the stage all decked out in Sadboycrew shirts.
They played songs like “Whatever You Want It To Be” off of their album “Mind Games” that was released earlier this year. Louis Miceli, the lead singer, was interacting with the crowd and getting in their faces while passionately singing the lyrics. Despite the signs posted throughout the venue that say “no crows surfing, no crowd moshing or you will be kicked out,” there were fans that made way onto the stage to attempt crowd surfing.
Headliner Fronzilla and his 4-year-old son Blaise Fronzak, could be seen watching Palisades from the side stage door. They were also joined on stage by Peyton who took advantage of the crowd’s energy. She also jumped off the drums and into the crowd, but little did they know that this wouldn’t be the last time they see her.
Up next was Chris Fronzak, better known as Fronzilla, who had a special performance in store for the crowd. Even though the “Fronzilla Party Tour” is his first solo headlining tour, he is no stranger to the stage being the front-man of the Metalcore band Atilla that formed in 2005.
Fronzilla’s hip-hop side project has given him a bit more freedom to express himself more. The stage was lined with two big banners with a photo of his cat, Carl The Sphynx, who has 77.1k followers on Instagram.
Making his way on stage wearing all black with an acceptation of his snow white high tops, the energy of the night did not come to a halt. His black beanie with the word “sick” across the front matched that of some fans in the crowd. He pointed this out and thanked them for buying gear from his clothing line, “Stay Sick.”
Joined on stage by Miceli from Palisades for his performance, Fronzilla really got the crowd moving.
Some fans got a VIP experience by being let on the stage for the entire performance. Others made their way onto the stage themselves.
There was a point in the set where the stage was full of fans and performers from earlier in the night. With space becoming scarce on stage, Fronzilla made his way into the crowd and finished his set surrounded by people trying to take selfies with him.
Once the concert was over the crowd dispersed to the merchandise area where many of the band members were waiting to meet fans, old and new. Fans got the opportunity to buy shirts, bracelets, CDs and also take selfies with with these talented musicians.