Coheed and Cambria - Photo credit: Erica McKeehen

Progressive rockers Coheed and Cambria teamed up with hard rock titans Mastodon to embark on the Unheavenly Skye Tour across North America in late May, and on June 14th, 2019 their travels brought them to Chicago’s Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island. Coheed and Cambria performed in support of their ninth studio album, The Unheavenly Creatures, ensuring the audience a mix of both old and new tunes across a 16-track setlist. Big riffs and big hair (Sanchez’s famous locks) carried loyalists through the windy evening rainstorms, highlighting an epic musical career that now spans two decades.

Coheed and Cambria formed in New York in 1995 and currently is comprised of Claudio Sanchez (lead vocals, guitars, keyboards), Travis Stever (guitars, vocals), Josh Eppard (drums, keyboards, backing vocals), and Zach Cooper (bass, backing vocals). On a trip to Paris in 1998, the group decided on the name Coheed and Cambria — Coheed and Cambria being the two protagonist characters from the science fiction storyline the Armory Wars written by Sanchez. The Armory Wars concept has driven the band’s album content for years (the first seven of their albums as well as their most recent release are conceptual and follow the storyline), beginning with their first studio album The Second Stage Turbine Blade, released in 2002. (Following the full Armory Wars story, by the way, though integral to the diehard Coheed experience, is not a necessity for enjoying the music.) After extensive touring to support the album and a brief stint on the 2002 Vans Warped Tour, the group took a new manager who helped propel them from a modest cult following to stadium success in just two albums. With the release of their second album, In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3, the group established commercial success with singles like “A Favor House Atlantic” and “Blood Red Summer” getting MTV airplay. In Keeping Secrets… was so successful, in fact, that Columbia Records offered the group a multi-album contract, the first of which being their debut major-label release and most commercially successful to-date, 2005’s Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness. 

The group continued to release thematic albums and tour throughout the 2000’s and into the next decade, gathering musical influence for each new project from rock god icons like Queen, Iron Maiden, and Led Zeppelin. However, despite their classic rock roots, Coheed has managed to brand a unique styling of progressive and post-hardcore that, coupled with their fantastical lyrical content, has earned them top credentials amongst their heavy metal heroes. Fitting to see them play amongst the likes of Mastodon, who graced the stage just before the first notes of Coheed’s “Prologue.”

Coheed and Cambria Setlist, 6/14/19

1. Prologue

2. The Dark Sentencer

3. Key Entity Extraction V: Sentry the Defiant

4. Unheavenly Creatures

5. In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3

6. A Favor House Atlantic

7. The Gutter

8. True Ugly

9. No World for Tomorrow

10. Gravity’s Union

11. Mother Superior

12. The Suffering

13. Old Flames

Encore:

The Pavilion (A Long Way Back)

Welcome Home

Be sure to catch Coheed and Cambria with Mastodon during the remainder of their Unheavenly Skye Tour by checking out tour dates on their official website.