This year has been a roller coaster of events due to the appearance and significance of Covid-19. The music industry more than any other has been severely impacted by its effects and has had to work hard around the inconvenience. Falling In Reverse, a rock band first created in 2013, came up with the grand idea to hold two individual and completely different virtual concerts in an effort to combat the absence of live in person concerts. The main issue they had to work around was making sure they weren’t just singing on stage and used the pros of holding a virtual concert to its fullest. The concert was advertised to have done this, that it was “unlike anything you’ve ever seen”. As a fan of the band I was extremely excited to see what they had done to make their concert unique. 

Now I have been to exactly one concert before this in my life and I concluded two things. Number one is that if it’s virtual there’s no point, the whole appeal of a concert is getting to hear your favorite songs blasted for an hour and a half which wouldn’t be entirely achievable at home. Second is that concerts can last from oneand a half to three hours depending on the venue and when you get there. Between pre show acts and the actual band’s set list and how they perform but you’re gonna be there for a while no matter what. In order to combat both these things in a virtual concert you need to be doing more than just singing on a stage somehow and either make it longer than an hour and a half or keep it the same length and just do more in that time span.

I’m sad to report that Falling In Reverse did not live up to its hype. Each concert was only 40 minutes and each individual show cost $25. Now considering that for this single price at a normal concert you get between one and a half to three hours of actual music listening time depending on when you arrive this price point is a HUGE rip off. Especially when you consider that in total for an hour and a half it cost $50 to watch both. Not only that, but the main selling point of the whole thing, being that it wasn’t going to just be the band singing on stage to camera, was false. The only thing that was “different” was that they used special effects and props around them. It was also advertised to be a live performance but it wasn’t, because they had to use special effects they couldn’t do a live performance so it was just pre-recorded and cut in half. 

As far as the music itself goes, the first concert was my least favorite of the two. Out of the 10 songs they played there were about four songs that I actually liked and even knew as a newer fan. Several other people on Twitter also had the same thoughts as me. The second one had even fewer that I knew but more that I ended up liking. The part that confused me most though is that they ended up playing songs from the lead singers, Ronnie Radke, old band that he got kicked out of after going to prison for drug use. What kind of musician who has four fully developed albums, each containing between 11-15 songs each, plays songs from their OLD band? I mean I get it, people really like those songs and you have rights to play those songs, but this is a Falling In Reverse concert. And when the majority of your fans don’t even know you were in another band, I don’t think it very wise to play those songs. No one, and I mean no one as far as my research showed, even requested that he play his old band’s songs. They all requested songs from his current four albums.

Over-all, the song choice sucked, the setup was basic and unentertaining, and they had SO much potential to do more. I was heavily disappointed as a newer fan and am sad to report that even older fans who also liked his old band were also heavily disappointed. Everyone feels as though they got taken advantage of and lied to, which isn’t inaccurate. I didn’t even get to cover the cost of their merch that they created for the event. With how much money they were charging people for everything, I expected more effort. I did end up having fun singing to the songs I did know but when that was only 10 percentof the whole concert is it really worth it? My answer is no, no it wasn’t.