By David Lucas, Rock At Night Orlando
Live Review: New Year’s Day – The Haven, Winter Park-October 19, 2022
Traveling over an hour to a show on a weeknight is not my normal thing to do, especially knowing that I wouldn’t be home till around 1:00 AM and back up at 5:00 AM. When Ash Costello and her band New Years Day are in town, you want to do anything to make it to the show. Being one of the first to enter the venue I can get front center stage, Which means inches away from the band. This is a venue without a photo pit. Right in front of me is a two step high set of metal steps with a handrail.
Show time and the lights go down. Tommy jumps up on the stage and before sitting behind his drum kit he makes his way across the front of the stage slapping hands with the people in the stage’s front, myself included. He takes a seat and the rest of the band hits the stage and BOOM, loud crisp sounds of drums, bass and guitar to the sound of “Come For Me”. Ash enters the stage from the right and the screams from the room nearly overpower the music. This tells me she has fans in Orlando, Florida. Rockin’ across the stage, Ash goes right to the steps and starts slinging her long black and red hair all over the place. Being this close I can feel her hair bouncing off my face and across my camera lens. This is an outstanding experience.
Next they go into “Skeletons” and I can hear the singing coming from all around me singing right along with Ash. Her voice is one that you do not want to cover up, you can’t help but hear the surrounding voices. If you don’t think they are rocking hard, during “Kill or Be Killed”, the right side of Tommy’s kit that holds his cymbals dropped down. The crew were quick to respond, however the fix wasn’t that easy and one of their crew held the bar up by hand during “Shut Up” so the show could go on. Fixed just in time for their latest single “Hurts Like Hell”. When you think that the show couldn’t get any better, for myself it did. Next, a cover of “Fucking Hostile” by none other than Pantera. Finishing up the show by stepping back to their 2015 album Malevolence with I’m About to Break You, Scream, Malevolence and Defame Me. The night was one to remember and one that I will do just that for a long time.
PHOTO GALLERY
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