There was some sort of electricity vibrating in the air at Fort Lauderdale\u2019s Culture Room, way before Close Enemies even hit the stage. People were shoulder to shoulder, swapping guesses about the set and waiting for that first riff, and once the lights dropped, the room flipped from chatter to full attention in seconds.<\/p>\n
The band opened with \u201cRain,\u201d then moved straight into \u201cSound of a Train\u201d and \u201cInside Out,\u201d which gave the night a clear identity early: tight band, hard groove, no wasted motion. \u201cSweet Baby Jesus\u201d and \u201cTake a Pill\u201d kept the pressure on, and you could feel the crowd settle into that rhythm where nobody is looking at their phone anymore because the band has them locked in.<\/p>\n
What made this show work was the balance between polish and attitude. Chasen Hampton kept the crowd engaged without overdoing it, Tom Hamilton held down the center of gravity on bass, and the guitar pairing of Trace Foster and Peter Stroud gave each song a little extra lift. It sounded like a band that has put in real hours together, not a one-off project, all the while Tony Brock\u00a0punished the drum kit with accuracy and grace.<\/p>\n
Mid-set, they mixed in \u201cMidnight Rendezvous,\u201d then rolled through \u201cMore Than I Could Ever Need,\u201d \u201cLove is a Battlefield,\u201d and \u201cMystery of Love.\u201d The pacing there was smart. They gave the room a breather without losing momentum, then pulled everybody back in with \u201cSeasons of Wither.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final run landed hardest: \u201cDry Rocket,\u201d \u201cWink & a Feather,\u201d then the two Aerosmith cuts, \u201cSick as a Dog\u201d and \u201cSweet Emotion,\u201d which got the biggest singalong of the night. They closed with a drum solo that segued into \u201cHead First,\u201d and it felt like the right kind of ending for this room: loud, loose, and a little chaotic in a good way.<\/p>\n
Overall, this was a proper club-rock show, the kind where the band sounds close enough to touch, and the crowd leaves sweaty and happy. Close Enemies did not play it safe, and Culture Room got exactly the kind of set that keeps people talking all the way to the parking lot.<\/p>\n
CLOSE ENEMIES Photo Gallery:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was some sort of electricity vibrating in the air at Fort Lauderdale\u2019s Culture Room, way before Close…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[62774,24892,249,251,250],"class_list":["post-146634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-close-enemies","tag-concert-review","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}