The band felt they deserved it as well. Taking a page from rock stars past, The Used made the audience wait nearly an hour after Atreyu left the stage for their set to begin. This may have been something due to ego, which seemed the most plausible reason after seeing them take a page from the Def Leppard book of touring with their “Local Slut” passes for anyone who got backstage, but it may have also been done due to the band’s extremely limited catalog of songs.

Either way, after the long delay and the crowd’s restlessness reaching a breaking point, the band took the stage in a flash of blinding light kicking into their latest single, Take It Away. With it being the song that plays continuously on the band’s website when it opens, it was no surprise the youngsters in the audience knew every word vocalist Bert McCracken screamed out.

Guitarist Quinn Allman squeezed some of the most painful chords to ever come out of a guitar on the songs the band offered up. Watching him thrash about while McCracken bounced and patrolled the stage as usual made up the inactivity leading up to the set.

While the 12 song set list was a bit of a letdown, clocking in at under an hour, a reasonable ticket price of $17 made up for the brevity considering 3 other bands were on the bill; one of which, Head Automatica, had their vocalist join McCracken in singing Sound Effects and Over Dramatics.

Going on before The Used was Atreyu. I’d head plenty of good things about this band, but honestly didn’t understand where the good praise was coming from. Guitarist Travis Miguel was a killer shredder, but the rest of the band felt bland. With a singer that screams more in the sense of being injured than the anger usually associated with Metal or this faux-Metal atmosphere, Atreyu was a letdown.

While the headliner’s set came it shorter than one would want, the multitude of bands on the bill easily made up for it. By the end of The Used’s last song, I’m a Fake, the audience was drenched in sweat and had sore throats from singing along with the bands for an entire evening. While it may not have been exactly what I wanted, the kids didn’t seem to mind.