With the experience of opening for heroes like Iron Maiden and Motley Crue last summer, metal act Avenged Sevenfold is approaching its upcoming club tour with bombastic aspirations. The dates come in support of the group’s Warner Bros. debut, “City of Evil,” which reached No. 30 on The Billboard 200 and has sold 396,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
“We’ve been trying to pack an arena show into smaller clubs,” singer Matt Shadow tells Billboard.com. “When we played a couple of gigs with Iron Maiden, Motley Crue and Marilyn Manson in Germany, we were like, ‘Damn, this is where we want to be.’ These are shows that we grew up going to and you don’t really see much like that anymore. A lot of bands don’t really do it until they get to a super large level. So, we’re doing a lot of things [other] bands wouldn’t do.”
In addition to touring with their own lighting tech, the quintet’s club show includes risers, catwalks and huge scrims on the stage offering background changes. “It’s a bunch of cool things that look huge on a small stage but it’s exciting for the kids because it’s always changing,” Shadow says. “You don’t have to sit there for an hour-and-a-half and kind of look at the same thing.”
After touring major cities this past fall, Avenged Sevenfold begins a month-long secondary market jaunt Jan. 19 in Tucson, Ariz., before leaving for Europe. Shadow says another Stateside run (co-headlining with a notable band he declined to name) is slated for spring. The group’s summer plans remain up in the air, but one festival gig won’t be reprised.
“We’re not going to do a Vans Warped run,” Shadow says. “We’re probably going to go to Europe but there are a lot of tours going on. We’re not really sure what’s going on with Ozzfest. They’ve been offering stuff but we’re not really sure who is headlining. They won’t tell us and they want us to commit now but we won’t do that until we know who is headlining. We might just get out of the country and do a [U.S.] tour after the summer.”
An Avenged Sevenfold DVD is also percolating and could possible be out as soon as the fall. “The DVDs I like to watch are like the Pantera DVD, where everyone is just f***ing around backstage, going crazy,” Shadow says. “You get to see signings and see them having a good time backstage and then you get to see a couple of live performances and their videos. That’s kind of what I want to have. I know we’re a fun band when we tour, and I think kids would love to see that.”
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