So What?! Festival day three pulled out all the stops on headliners with performances by Alexisonfire, 2 Chainz, Mod Sun, and Underoath to cap off the final day.
A Skylit Drive is doing rounds at festivals this year with the original lineup. They were one of the first bands to perform on the main stage on Sunday. They are on a reunion of sorts with the original members. They played the first album they released in its entirety much to the joy of those who were there to experience it.
The Word Alive was the follow-up band on the main stage. Frontman Tyler Smith was excited to play an earlier set as it allowed him to see other bands throughout the day and be supportive of friends. For the first song, the band swapped guitar players to the original bass player who does front of house for another band that played that day, so fans were happy and excited to see that. Dallas’ own Ballista was tearing it up on the Monster Energy Stage. With a trans rights flag waving, the band made it known what they stood up for. Canadian Band Counterparts had a very hot and humid midday time slot and frontman Brendan Murphy made sure everyone knew that it was hot and he wasn’t being paid enough for this set. He had the general outlook of whatever happens, here is our set. The band started off with “Love Me” and went on to play a total of seven songs. They ended with “The Disconnect.” Another of Dallas’ own, UnityTX with frontman Jay covered the heavy breakdowns with the street-style rap that is starting to be common again. The band really knows how to control a crowd considering they are one of the newer bands on the festival but have a massive hometown following. The Plot In You started with lead singer Landon Tewers coming out and singing “Face Me” by himself before slowly being joined by the other band members during the bridge of the song. The band played only a six-song set and made sure to end with fan-favorite “Feel Nothing.” Mod Sun performed on the smaller Hot Topic Music Stage outdoors. He is possibly one of the most positive human beings ever and is genuinely happy playing his music for everyone to hear. He started off with his most recent single “Karma,” followed up by the amazing song “Betterman.” The crowd was fed off his high-octane energy and bounced around and sang as loud as they could. Over on the main stage, metalcore band The Devil Wears Prada took to the stage. The band played seven and a half songs starting off with “Watchtower” and concluding with just the intro to “Texas is South.” The band put on a very high-energy set with lots of movement from singer Mike Hrancia pacing from left to right on the stage all while screaming his parts in perfect sync with Jeremy DePoyster singing his parts. We Came As Romans all wore shirts for the Kyle Pavone Foundation, which is a foundation set up for the deceased singer Kyle Pavone. The band played a super quick set which is pretty common for festivals since there are so many time constraints and moving parts. Comeback Kid was another Canadian band on the closing night of the festival. The band is a mix of punk and hardcore. The band saw lots of circle and mosh pits form during the 25-minute set, along with lots of gang vocals from the crowd. Lead singer Andrew Neufeld spent the majority of the time on the guardrail giving his mic to the crowd to sing along as much as they wanted to with them. The band ended with the most memorable song of theirs, “Wake The Dead.” The Canadian band Alexisonfire took to the stage at 8:35 pm. No intro, no nothing, just came onto the stage and immediately jumped into “Drunks, Lovers, Sinners and Saints.” The band didn’t take any time in between songs to be personable or talk; they were here to play as much as they could in a shorter set. All in all, the band played fifteen songs. The setlist was super heavy on the Crisis album, which was the album that gained them the most traction as a band. Bass player Chris Steele was easily the most entertaining of the band between his antics on stage and constant movement. He actually had to be turned around at one point by guitar player/singer Dallas Green. The set ended with the band playing “Happiness by the Kilowatt” which saw guitar player Wade MacNeil taping his guitar to the front of his guitar cab causing a constant loop of modulated feedback. Underoath closed out the main rock stage and started with “Damn Excuses” which is a song about them breaking free of the Christian following they once had and the new outlook they share as a band. They also played fan favorites such as “It’s Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door,” “Reinventing Your Exit,” “A Boy Brushed Red Living in Black and White,” and finished with “Writing on the Walls.” 2 Chainz closed the whole night on the Flows Backyard Rap Stage which was outside of the festival, down a hill, and close to the parking lots. He came out and the crowd lost their minds. That was the moment this stage had been waiting for and they finally got the pay-off of seeing him close out the tallest and largest stage of the festival. It’s fair to say the 2022 edition of the So What?! Music Festival was a roaring success. We can’t wait to see what they have in store for the next one!You can check out our coverage of day one here and day two here.
