DEVILDRIVER, UPON A BURNING BODY & More In Las Vegas, NV With Photos!

Wednesday, August 19, 2026 at 9:25 AM

By Arnold 'Rocky' Kessenger, Through The Metal Lens

It Was A Night Of 'Strike And Kill' At The Brooklyn Bowl On August 15th

All Live Photos By Arnold 'Rocky' Kessenger / @through_the_metal_lens
Band Photo By: Stephanie Cabral

Major Review Contributions From Trudy Kessenger (AKA The Better Half ;) )

There are nights I cover as a photographer, and there are nights I experience as a metalhead. Every once in a while, those two worlds crash directly into each other, and Saturday night at Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas was one of those nights. DEVILDRIVER brought the ‘Strike and Kill’ Tour through town on August 15 with UPON A BURNING BODY, OV SULFUR and CULTUS BLACK, and before I get too far into this, I might as well admit exactly where my head was by the end of the night: I fucking saw DEVILDRIVER. Yes, I have seen them before, and hopefully I will see them many more times. I have seen COAL CHAMBER, followed Dez Fafara through different stages of his career, and had DEVILDRIVER records in my rotation for years. None of that made Saturday night feel routine. Sometimes knowing exactly what a band means to you makes seeing them again even better.

Before DEVILDRIVER ever touched the stage, CULTUS BLACK gave me the first surprise of the night. I walked into the Brooklyn Bowl basically new to the band and walked out knowing they had earned a place on my listening list. A melodic introduction opened “Dissonance” before the bottom dropped out and red strobes began cutting through the haze. Short bursts of smoke surrounded the band while the first breakdown established very quickly that CULTUS BLACK had no intention of easing anyone into the evening.

Visually, the band leaned heavily into horror and darker imagery, but the presentation never swallowed the music. Guitar and bass worked together both musically and physically across the stage, and at one point the percussionist came over the kit to contribute vocals. After the opening song they introduced themselves with, “If you don’t know who we are, you’re gonna learn today,” and later acknowledged the obvious by telling Vegas, “We’re aware we look like a bunch of weirdos,” before asking how many other weirdos were in the room. This being Las Vegas, they had no trouble finding a few.

CULTUS BLACK worked through “Dissonance,” “Killing the Beautiful,” “Lorelei,” “Nevermine,” “Venom,” a cover of NIRVANA’s “Negative Creep,” and “You Make Me Sick.” By the final stretch, some of the floor had started to settle down, but rather than letting the set fade out, the frontman increased his energy, climbed onto the box at the front of the stage and pulled the focus right back toward him. Blue and white lights exploded around the band, and near the end he climbed onto the rail and pushed the microphone directly into the crowd.

Before leaving, CULTUS BLACK made Vegas say their name, and the response coming back was considerably louder than what greeted them at the beginning. Mission accomplished.

Later, while making my normal trip to photograph the merch area, I got a chance to meet their frontman. Then I looked over and Dino Cazares from motherfucking FEAR FACTORY was standing there! Trying to remain the polite fucking dude that I am, I walked over and asked, “Are you who I think you are?” Dino looked at me and replied, “Who do you think I am?” I answered, “Dino from fucking Fear Factory!” He smiled and immediately offered to take a picture with me. So somewhere in the middle of covering a four-band metal show in Las Vegas, I suddenly found myself taking a picture with Dino Cazares.

Perfectly normal Saturday night!

OV SULFUR followed and immediately changed the atmosphere. The Las Vegas band walked onto the stage demanding horns and went straight into “Endless//Godless,” with people beginning to creep toward the front while blue bursts punched through the room. Vocalist Ricky Hoover spent much of the set either standing on the box or crouched forward over the crowd, using his entire body along with the vocals, while the guitars were equally animated on either side of him. Their six-song set of “Endless//Godless,” “Seed,” “Forlorn,” “Wither,” “Vast Eternal” and “Evermore” occupied a darker visual space, with red, black, purple and blue dominating while sudden white bursts occasionally exposed the band through the haze. From a photographer’s standpoint, that kind of lighting can be a pain in the ass, but visually it worked with the music.

At one point Hoover demanded, “Make this shit count, Vegas,” and the band certainly did its part. He constantly scanned the room for people giving something back, even singling out a small group near the rail that had been going hard throughout the set. One woman had been recording clips of him for much of the performance, and the smile and point he gave her probably meant more than anything happening technically onstage.

The emotional center of OV SULFUR’s set arrived when Hoover introduced an older song by explaining that it was difficult to perform, not physically, but emotionally. “If you’ve ever lost somebody, this goes out to you.” The music dropped into a deep, dark opening while a few people near the front joined the words, and then everything opened back up with gutturals, guitars and another pit. OV SULFUR was not interested in leaving quietly either. They asked Vegas for a wall of death, split the floor, counted everyone down and sent both sides crashing together. When that started to settle, Hoover decided one was not enough. Round two saw him climb onto the rail and personally direct both sides before sending them back into one another.

By the end, OV SULFUR thanked everyone, invited fans to meet them at merch and walked off having played like the size of the crowd had absolutely nothing to do with the amount of effort they were willing to give.

Full Texas invasion over Nevada! UPON A BURNING BODY has never exactly hidden where they come from, and a Texas flag with a longhorn behind the band made sure nobody forgot it Saturday night. The lights disappeared, the preparation music stopped, yellow lights came up and “Killshot” started a ten-song set that also included “All Pride No Pain,” “Extermination,” “Daywalker,” “Hand of God,” “Another Ghost,” “Southern Hostility,” “King of Diamonds,” “B.M.F.” and “Texas Blood Money.” The crowd had noticeably grown by this point, and lyrics were already coming back toward the band during the opening stretch. Vocalist Danny Leal worked the stage wearing a fringe jacket with MR. TEXAS across the back, which pretty much told you everything you needed to know. Subtle? Absolutely not. But if you are going to do it, fucking commit. “Extermination” also brought a shift in production as the screens behind the band came alive and began matching the movement and beats of the music, while the floor in front of them finally began to fill in.

UPON A BURNING BODY wanted movement, and Leal’s instructions for starting a pit were about as complicated as they needed to be: grab somebody and run in a fucking circle. Eventually Vegas listened. One of my favorite moments of the entire night happened inside that pit when a younger fan tried to join in with what appeared to be his mother. He quickly looked uncomfortable, and the people around them noticed immediately. Instead of ignoring it, the surrounding crowd formed around both of them and helped create enough space for them to get through it safely before everyone went right back to moving. That is one of those moments people outside this music do not always understand. From the outside, they see bodies crashing into each other. Inside, people are watching one another. Leal later put that unwritten rule directly into words: “If anyone falls down, you pick them up.”

When he eventually divided the crowd left and right and told everyone to move, the floor answered. Near the end, the Texas flag came out again and Nevada temporarily lost control of its own territory. “For this next song, we are no longer in Nevada. You are in motherfucking Texas.” “Texas Blood Money” followed, and UPON A BURNING BODY played it exactly like the anthem they clearly believe it is. The front of the room threw everything into it while Leal carried the flag, the pit stayed alive and Texas claimed Brooklyn Bowl for a few minutes before graciously returning the property.

Then the stage began changing. Screens came down, equipment moved and the band would suddenly have considerably more room to work with. Somewhere during that transition, my night became something else. Before DEVILDRIVER took the stage, Dez noticed the DEVILDRIVER shirt I was wearing, came over, shook my hand and thanked me for supporting the band. That one got me. I was there working with cameras ready, photographs to get, notes to take and a review already forming somewhere in the back of my head. For those few seconds, none of that mattered. I was just a fucking fan. I was a kid in a metal store. Shortly before 9:00 p.m., the Brooklyn Bowl dropped into darkness, green thundercloud imagery appeared behind the stage, white strobes cut through it and blue lighting slowly rose. Then DEVILDRIVER walked out, and every bit of professionalism I had left started competing with the part of me thinking one very simple thing: I fucking saw DEVILDRIVER!

“Clouds Over California” opened the set, and there it was — that fucking groove. There are heavier bands than DEVILDRIVER, faster bands than DEVILDRIVER and certainly bands with more complicated stage productions, but very few bands have ever sounded quite like DEVILDRIVER when that groove locks into place. I remember getting that first DEVILDRIVER record and falling in love with “Die (And Die Now).” Something about the way the band could be brutally heavy without sacrificing that rhythmic pull grabbed me immediately, and all these years later it remains at the center of why I love them. “Not All Who Wander Are Lost” and “I Could Care Less” followed, with the latter drawing one of the strongest early reactions of the set. The first crowd surfer appeared, Dez saw it and immediately told Vegas, “We wanna see more of that.” The floor continued filling toward the front, the pit opened and closed, and I was standing there trying to photograph one of my favorite bands while also wanting to put the cameras down for thirty seconds and just lose my shit with everyone else.

What stood out more than anything was how much fun DEVILDRIVER appeared to be having. Dez and the guys were smiling throughout the night, and not in that automatic touring-band way where somebody turns toward the crowd because they know they are supposed to look happy. They looked energized and proud of what they were doing. You could see it in the way they interacted with one another and the way Dez repeatedly looked toward the crowd, caught something happening in front of him and suddenly broke into a grin.

This is a band that has been around for more than two decades, and nothing about the performance felt like five guys simply going through another night on another tour. They were giving 100 percent, feeding off each other and feeding off the people in front of them. Watching that made the handshake before the show mean even more. When Dez thanked me for supporting DEVILDRIVER, I initially experienced it as a fan getting a cool moment with someone whose music has been part of his life for years. Watching him perform made me believe that gratitude was genuine. DEVILDRIVER still seems thankful that people come to the shows, wear the shirts, buy the records and scream these songs back at them, and Saturday night they gave that love right back.

The set continued through “Head on to Heart,” the tour namesake “Strike and Kill,” “Meet the Wretched” and “Swinging the Dead.” Dez asked for middle fingers at one point and the front of Brooklyn Bowl proved very experienced with that particular form of audience participation. Blue imagery flooded the screens while the pit reopened, and everyone onstage seemed to bounce with the groove. During “Swinging the Dead,” Dez even broke into a quick dance before checking back in with the crowd and reminding everyone, “Take care of one another, yeah?” After watching the younger fan being protected in the pit during UPON A BURNING BODY, the line hit differently. Different band, different moment, same community. “Dig Your Own Grave” followed with the introduction, “Let the chips fall where they may,” as pink and purple lighting covered the stage, and the crowd began singing along. Dez even physically mimed digging during parts of the song, which probably would have looked ridiculous coming from the wrong frontman. Coming from Dez, it simply looked like Dez.

Watching Fafara perform is different from watching somebody simply stand behind a microphone and deliver songs. His entire body follows what he is singing. He crouches, leans forward, straddles the box and speaker, moves toward different sections of the room and sometimes appears to be singing directly to a single person rather than hundreds. There is an intensity in the way he performs that does not require pyro or elaborate props. He looks like he has something to say, and he is going to make damn sure you hear it. The back half of the set moved through “Dead in the Water,” “Hold Back the Day,” “Grinfucked,” “Ruthless,” “Cry for Me Sky,” “The Mountain” and “End of the Line.” The audience responded differently depending on the song. Sometimes the pit opened wide, while other moments saw everyone packed together singing instead. Dez tried getting the room clapping more than once, but Vegas seemed to prefer throwing horns and screaming lyrics. The clapping would survive for a little while before disappearing and being replaced by raised hands again. Know your audience.

At some point during those songs, I realized how ridiculous my night had become. I had discovered CULTUS BLACK, met their frontman, randomly taken a picture with Dino fucking Cazares, shaken Dez Fafara’s hand and then stepped into the photo pit to shoot one of my favorite bands! There are nights when being a concert photographer can accidentally create distance between you and the show. You start thinking about shutter speed, angles, where the vocalist is going next, whether you got the shot and whether that damn red light just destroyed another frame. Sometimes you can experience half a concert through a viewfinder without realizing it. Saturday night I got both sides. I got to photograph DEVILDRIVER, but I also got to fucking see DEVILDRIVER.

Near the end, Dez asked how many people were seeing DEVILDRIVER for the first time, and more hands went into the air than I expected. I loved that. Here is a band that has been part of my own metal timeline for years, and somewhere inside Brooklyn Bowl were people experiencing these songs live for the first time. Maybe somebody in that room heard that groove the way I did when I first put on that debut record. That is how this music keeps moving forward. Toward the end of the night, Dez talked briefly about growing up on punk rock, thanked everyone for spending the evening with them and mentioned that “Strike and Kill” had been sitting at number one for five weeks. The response rolled across the venue while the pit somehow continued hanging on. A few minutes later Dez was back on the box, pointing toward people, smiling and thanking the crowd again.

Shortly after 10:00 p.m., the house lights finally came up. Setlists went into the crowd, drumsticks followed and people began heading toward the exits while the crew started clearing the stage. I stood there processing the kind of night that reminds me why I still love doing this. I discovered a band I had never really listened to, watched OV SULFUR throw everything they had into their hometown show, saw a young fan learn that the people inside a mosh pit will protect you, temporarily lived in Texas, randomly met Dino Cazares and had one of my favorite frontmen walk over and thank me for supporting his band. Then I lifted my cameras and photographed music that has been part of my life for years.

I have covered a lot of shows and seen a lot of bands, but every once in a while metal still finds a way to make me feel like the kid who first discovered this music and could not get enough of it. Saturday night at Brooklyn Bowl was one of those nights.

I fucking saw DEVILDRIVER!
And yeah, it was fucking exceptional.

Remaining 'Strike And Kill' Tour Dates:

8/19 — Austin, TX — Come and Take It Live
8/20 — Houston, TX — House of Blues
8/22 — Dallas, TX — House of Blues
8/23 — Oklahoma City, OK — Diamond Ballroom
8/25 — Chicago, IL — Bottom Lounge
8/26 — Milwaukee, WI — The Rave
8/29 — Colorado Springs, CO — Sunshine Studios
8/30 — Salt Lake City, UT — The Depot
9/1 — Boise, ID — Treefort Music Hall
9/2 — Reno, NV — Club Underground
9/3 — Sacramento, CA — Goldfield
9/4 — San Jose, CA — The Ritz
9/5 — Anaheim, CA — House of Blues

CULTUS BLACK