The band who owned this night and brought the Hollywood spirit back to life was Avenged Sevenfold, who happened to be the headliners. In a flash of lights coming between billows of smoke, Avenged Sevenfold took the stage on their lighted pedestals like bands had done 20 years earlier on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. Only tonight, the show had been brought to Houston, Texas.

The flashy nature of this band gave the audience a chance to get just as enthralled visually as they ever had with an album. The members ran about on the stage jumping from platform to platform as the guitarists took turns belting out leads or dueling together. Vocalist M. Shadows wailed with the best of metal vocalists through a set list comprised of songs from the band’s last two albums, Waking the Fallen and City of Evil.

With an audience packed like sardines into the Meridian and a barricade being pushed to the stage, one could not help but be intoxicated by the energy and excitement that coursed with each new song. Each song slithering through multiple changes and breakdowns only to come back to the recognizable chorus that cued voices to fill the air with the lyrics and chants that began well before the band did.

This was the rock n’ roll vibe missing from so many concerts where bands mope about their girlfriends and stare at their shoes, this is the flash and insanity that rock music brought to hormone-overloaded youths 20 years ago. Sure, it’s ground previously covered, but what is wrong with that?