By “Tampa” Earl Burton
Live Review: Nonpoint with Sumo Cyco and Soil – Ritz Ybor, Tampa, FL – April 25, 2026
For the denizens of nu-metal on Saturday night, it looked like a perfect evening. Florida’s favorite sons, Nonpoint, were ready to rock The Ritz in Ybor City, and they brought with them two powerful openers in Canada’s Sumo Cyco and Chicago rockers Soil. While the music delivered the goods, thrilling the crowd that journeyed to Tampa on Saturday, there was one oddity for those in attendance.
Nonpoint Brings the Thunder, Teases New Album
For a band that is deep into its third decade in the business, you wouldn’t have known it from the energy that Fort Lauderdale’s Nonpoint brought to The Ritz on Saturday night. One of the bands that brought the nu-metal format to life in the late Nineties, vocalist Elias Soriano stepped on the gas from the start with one of the band’s biggest songs, “Ruthless,” and the rest of Nonpoint responded behind him. Perhaps it is because the band has been together so long that Soriano and Company were able to, from the start, powerfully attack their fourteen-song set, and they kept the floor hopping all night long.
Throughout the night, Soriano would tease that a new album would be coming out in the summer. The band would perform two songs, “Is It” and “Red Yeti” (a duet with tourmate Skye Sweetnam of Sumo Cyco), that will be a part of that new album. The Nonpoint fans roared their approval at both tracks but seemed to be especially fond of the duet between Soriano and Sweetnam on the latter track.
For a band that has not had “hits” per se, there seemed to be a LOT of songs that the crowd stuffed in The Ritz were bouncing to! Including the opener “Ruthless,” Nonpoint delivered several tracks from their catalog that showcased the band’s power. “Dodge Your Destiny,” “What a Day,” duetting with Sweetnam on “That Day,” and the band’s cover of recently inducted Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” (one of the better covers of that song, in all honesty) kept the party going. Nonpoint would push this all the way to the final notes and have a few things to say along the way.
As the band pulled in for its final songs, Soriano, a proud Dominican and Puerto Rican American, paused to reflect on the current state of the world. He mentioned his father was in the audience (making the trek over from Fort Lauderdale for the show) and how he had been the victim of an ICE detention. “Took some work, but he’s free now,” Soriano commented, “They can try to break us, but we’ll always be alive!” That served to rouse the audience as Nonpoint rocketed into arguably two of the band’s biggest tunes, “Alive and Kicking” and “Bullet With a Name,” to conclude a powerful show from a band that is just as viable today as it was when it began thirty years ago.
Excellent Openers, but…
Nonpoint is well-versed in picking out openers for their shows, and on the Outta Control Tour, they touched back and picked an old friend. Sumo Cyco has toured with Nonpoint on previous occasions, and the band is one of those creations that you wonder, “Why haven’t they hit yet?” Led by the vivacious Skye Sweetnam, the band dates to 2011, and has gradually built their
fandom from their base in Canada. Over the span of four albums, including their most recent release Neon Void (2025), Sumo Cyco has demonstrated that they are ready for their time in the spotlight.
Whether it was Sweetnam’s vocals, which ranged from sweetness to guttural when she introduced her “dirty” voice, or Matt Drake’s guitar work, the band was in excellent form despite this being only the second stop of the Outta Control Tour. Off the new album, “Villains” was an especially great track, but I’m hoping to hear more out of the band with a new release soon.
The middle act in the three-band set was the Chicago band Soil, which is also celebrating its 30th anniversary, like Nonpoint. The band, led by vocalist Ryan McCombs, was also in rare voice as they delivered a solid show. I want to say I am knowledgeable about the band, but I am not; that did not stop me from enjoying the band’s performance, and it has sent me down the Spotify rabbit hole to listen to more of their work.
…It’s Saturday Night!
If there was one bugaboo about the Saturday night show, it was that it was WAY TOO QUICK. The doors opened at 5:30, and Sumo Cyco took the stage at 6:30 for a forty-five-minute performance. After about a twenty-minute break, Soil took to the stage for their roughly sixty-minute set. Nonpoint took the stage at about 8:45 and delivered a powerful sixty-minute set. If you haven’t totaled that up yet, that means the show was DONE at roughly 9:30 in the evening, at a point when most shows are just getting into full throat. I do not know whether this is the norm for The Ritz on a Saturday night or an exception (noise ordinances may have caused it), but I know most rockers would prefer a later night, especially on a Saturday. Comedian Kelsey Cook calls her current tour the Reasonable Bedtime Tour – this was right along that line, as I was home by 10 PM.
If the only thing I am complaining about is that I was home too early, that’s something I can live with, however. The Nonpoint/Soil/Sumo Cyco triumvirate, under the Outta Control Tour banner, will be on the road through much of the next couple of months. In the next couple of weeks, they will be attacking Hartford, CT (May 1), Warrendale, PA (May 2), Harrisburg, PA (May 3), and Asbury Park, NJ (May 5). All tour dates can be found at the Nonpoint website (or Sumo Cyco’s website) and, if they are coming near you, you’d be in for an outstanding show – hope it goes longer than 10 PM!
PHOTO GALLERY
- An ‘Outta Control’ Night: Nonpoint Powers Aggressive Rock Show in Tampa - April 29, 2026
- Class of 2026 for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Cleaning Out the Closet - April 14, 2026
- Chatting with Canadian metal band The Fixer - April 2, 2026
