After barnstorming Canada coast to coast with Papa Roach in September, Five Finger Death Punch hooked up with Florida-based hard rock band Shinedown for a two-month co-headlining U.S. tour highlighted by its Oct. 28 homecoming show at T-Mobile Arena.
It’s the biggest tour yet for Las Vegas’ favorite sons of groove-heavy metal, who started out as a veritable supergroup featuring former members of W.A.S.P., Anubis Rising and Motograter but quickly transcended those bands’ legacies. FFDP has rarely been off the charts since its 2007 Way of the Fist, with 2015 album Got Your Six debuting at No. 2 on Billboard’s Top 200. And there’s no end in sight for the juggernaut quintet, which plans to release a follow-up to Got Your Six in 2017. The video for latest single “I Apologize,” a song that addresses addiction, features singer Ivan Moody literally digging his own grave in a cemetery where the names of rock greats of the past can be seen on headstones.
Moody had skirted to the edge himself midway through the band’s career due to an alcohol problem, but was pulled back with the help of his family and bandmates, firming up FFDP’s foundation and allowing the band to chart a course that put it on top of the metal mountain. There would be more trials and tribulations, including a May 2015 onstage altercation between Moody and drummer Jeremy Spencer that nearly tore the band apart, but FFDP seemed nothing but positive and unified during the Canadian tour. The tour was successful enough to allow the band, which has an affinity for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and homelessness, to donate proceeds from the shows to the Badge of Honor Memorial Foundation.
Five Finger Death Punch’s future seems assured as long as it can maintain band health and solidarity, with the possibility the next album could hit No. 1 no doubt providing plenty of motivation to keep it that way.
T-Mobile Arena, 6:30 p.m. Oct. 28, starting at $46 plus tax and fee. 888.929.784
