Review & photos by Joe Harvey
I was excited to attend the Seneca concert. After they became Artist of the Month on the site, it was just kind of funny that they were rolling through my area during that month, so I knew I was going to the show. The night of the show, my brother and I drove out to the venue, Doug's Rockhouse in Aurora, IL. It was a calm night, so I was more than happy to be going to see Seneca tear up the stage. We arrived early, and the bands were all inside setting up. I found Corey, the vocalist from the band, and introduced my brother and myself. He was very friendly, happy to sit down and talk with us for a bit. After a short while, he excused himself to go help the band finish loading in their equipment.
Seneca took the stage second and wasted no time getting things going. They began their set with the opening track to Reflections and quickly moved into the song that I was looking forward to hearing most, "Palehorse". Disappointing would probably be the last adjective I would use to describe the early goings of the set. All the instruments were being played very loud and very tight. It sounded awesome. The vocals sounded incredible, they were delivered with pure passion and ferocity. I was standing in wait to hear the clean vocals, because those, if anything, are often what suffer the most during a live performance. Once again, I was not left disappointed. Although the clean vocals were not 100% album quality (which one can't really expect considering the screamer and the clean vocalist are the same guy) they sounded great.
The band played only songs from Reflections, which I was happy to hear because I had yet heard their debut release. They played the first four songs in the order that they are on the album, and then finished up with a couple other tracks form the CD. All in all, the show was excellent. I would definitely recommend seeing this band live, and I will no doubt be keeping track to see when they will be playing in my area again. With the hard work Seneca puts into their music and their live shows, I hope to see their national fanbase and recognition grow very much so over time.