Saw Iced Earth in Indianapolis last night.
The first opening act was a local stoner/doom metal band called Wolfstooth. They weren't bad at all, and although not very high energy, they seemed pretty pleased to be up on stage in front of a hundred people or so. Check them out on Bandcamp:
https://wolftooth.bandcamp.com/releases
Next band was Kill Ritual. I don't know much about them. They were fine but not really my thing, very west coast thrash/glam almost. Still they weren't bad.
People started to show up for Sanctuary. This was fairly emotional given that it is Sanctuary's first gig since the death of Warrel Dane. The replacement singer was from White Wizzard, and very good for the task at hand. I was standing next to the two biggest Sanctuary fans in the audience and their energy was electric.
But the main event was Iced Earth, of course. I had hoped by coming to Indy we'd see something special since Jon Schaffer is a Hoosier, and they haven't played Indiana in quite some time. Unfortunately it was mostly the same set from the European tour, but that's a great set, so I wasn't at all upset by this.
Stu was pretty good but he blew out his natural upper range about halfway through the gig, so some stuff went flat then. His lower register remained powerful and there were moments on songs where he sounded positively Barlowesque. Jon was good, as always, but it was Luke Appleton and Jake Dreyer whom I was primarily impressed by. Jake's leads were very good on the older songs and Luke has a great stage presence. Overall well worth the $25 us.