Words and photos by Santino Freda
On May 9th, 2024, the notorious metalcore band Architects headlined at Franklin Music Hall in Philadelphia with openers While She Sleeps and Of Mice & Men. Unfortunately, I was unable to make it for While She Sleeps, but opener, Of Mice & Men, put on an amazing performance starting with “Obsolete” and finishing with “Second & Sebring.”
Headliner Architects brought it home with an incredible performance. From the members’ talents, to the amazing visuals and stage arrangement, the show was absolutely killer. Some consider Architects, formed back in 2004, to be one of the founding bands that created the sound of metalcore that all its fans know and love. Throughout the entire 16-song lineup, fans were crowd surfing, opening the pit, and bringing the right energy for a show like this and it was a sick sight to see. I was only familiar with a handful of their songs prior to looking further into them before the show and I can confidently say that seeing the band live made me a fan of their music. If you haven’t already seen them live, fan or not, do it!
Architects
Of Mice & Men
Capturing this Show
Being new to concert photography, this was an experience I had always looked forward to and I can safely say I couldn’t have enjoyed my time more than I did. Being in the photo pit for a show like this was on another level—not only because I forgot my earplugs (you can only imagine how my ears were doing) but also because the sheer energy between the band and fans was unlike any other way to experience a show.
Of course, there was the occasional crowd-surfer being pulled into the pit by security, but as long as you can dodge them, it’s no big deal, haha. I shot the whole show with my 50mm f1.8 lens on a Sony A7IV and occasionally switched to a 16mm f1.4. The crowd was rowdy but not in a hard-to-deal-with or inappropriate way, so navigating was not difficult, and they were very cautious of me making my way through.
Check out Architects here!
Check out Of Mice & Men here!
Catch Architects on the rest of their tour here!
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