Words by Emma Martin/ Photos by Dave Martin (Faversham Photography)
Citizen Soldier was accompanied by Kill The Lights on Thursday night’s concert as a part of their European Tour in Dreamland, Margate.
Kill The Lights opened the show with ‘Shed My Skin’, one of their more popular songs that came out in early 2020. From the beginning they had high levels of energy and audience interaction. The stage started bathed in blue. Vocalist James Clark started getting the audience excited with his jumping and head-banging before the first verse even hit. As the chorus struck, the lights revolved red and white, with Clark calling out, “Raise your hands,” and the audience followed. Once the song finished, he shouted, “You good today? We’re Kill The Lights!” prompting a cheer from the audience before the band rolled into the next song, ‘Die Alone’.
As the next song commenced, Clark yelled to the crowd, “Let’s see your hands everybody!” which was followed by the audience pumping their fists in the air to the beat of the music. With the bassist, Jason “Jay” James, on heavy vocals, the fans started head-banging, joined by Clark and other members of the band.
During the third song ‘Hear You Scream’ the audience did just that, mirroring the dynamic show being delivered by the band themselves. With the expected, impressive performance given by James and drummer Michael “Moose” Thomas-former members of the band ‘Bullet For My Valentine’–as well as the talent of Clark and Montgomery, it made for one hell of an opening for the show.
The next two songs performed were ‘Broken Bones’ and ‘Ashes’ from the band’s album ‘Death Melodies’ which was released in March of 2024. These popular songs from the band were well received by the audience, with the crowd throwing their hands in the air and singing along with the band.
Throughout their set, Kill The Lights showcased high energy movement and musicianship, along with their enthusiastic audience interaction with Clark saying things like, “If you’re broken, we love you!” and “Who’s excited for Citizen Soldier?” both of which elicited cheering from the crowd. This level of liveliness continued through the entirety of their performance, until the moment they stepped off the stage at the end of their final song, ‘The Faceless’.
Overall, a very powerful performance from the band that set the tone for the headline act to follow.
Setlist: 1. Shed my Skin, 2. Die Alone, 3. Hear You Scream, 4. Broken Bones, 5. Ashes, 6. Plagues, 7. The Faceless.
After a short interval between the bands, Citizen Soldier entered the stage one by one, with each member of the band eliciting a larger cheer than the previous musician, screaming especially loud when the singer Jake Segura entered the stage. Without any dialogue, Citizen Soldier kicked off their performance with ‘Bulletproof’ , a song from their newly released album ‘Family Heirlooms’. This performance produced a instant high energy response from the audience, likely due to having been warmed up watching Kill The Lights. As the song ended, Segura caused a large cheer by saying, “I have one thing to say to you. It’s about damn time, I’ve waited so long to say this, welcome to group therapy”.
The band then rolled into the next song ‘Life Support’ which highlights the theme of suicide prevention and mental health awareness, that you can find within the lyrics of most of their songs. With the band showing enthusiasm, soon follows the audience, cheering and head-banging along to the beat. As the song ended, Segura spoke again, “You guys ready to cry, we came all the way from the state of Utah to make you cry” and as the next song started, the crowd showed clear levels of emotion.
Songs three, four and five were all from their newly released album ‘Family Heirlooms’ which was released on the 12th of November, the day before the concert. All three songs ‘Figure me out’, ‘Dead butterflies’ and ‘Inner critic’ were sung along to by the crowd as they are some of their more popular pieces, having been released as singles before the album. Jake Segura ramped up the audience with continued talking, riling them up with sentences such as, “Thanks for coming to see five dumb Americans” and “I hope you brought your tissues”. There was more audience interaction from other members of the band throughout these songs, with the lead guitarist Matt Duffney making love hearts at the audience, accompanied by Segura holding out the microphone to the crowd which was met with louder singing from the viewers.
As the next song, ‘Dead-end life’ started, Segura spoke to the audience “Well we’re gonna cope with some dark humour, and self-deprecation. This song’s called ‘Dead End life’”. This song is yet another example of Citizen Soldier’s strong theme on the importance of mental health.
‘Burden’ followed, introduced with Segura’s impactful message “England, you are not a burden” which earned powerful cheers, this sentiment was mimicked in the next song “I’m Not Okay” deepening the emotional connection, with Segura walking along the crowd as fans sang entire sections of the song.
During ‘You Are Enough’, the crowd joined in singing happy birthday to bassist Wonitta Rivero before the song continued, creating an emotional atmosphere when Segura requested the audience wave their phone torches in the air. The energy remained high through ‘Better Than I Used To Be’ and ‘Letdown’ with fans clapping, cheering, and head-banging along with the band.
For ‘Face to Face’ Segura shared that it was his favourite song to perform. The audience chanted “I fought the devil and I lived to tell” in call-and-response with Segura before continuing to sing the rest of the song alongside him.
Before ‘Thank You For Hating Me’, Segura delivered a heartfelt speech about the challenges of making music in today’s society, earning loud applause as he drew it to a close. The audience sang along to the entire track with it being one of Citizen Soldier’s more popular songs. Towards the end of the song drummer Kyle Persell soloed before the entire stage went black.
The audience began chanting, “One more song”, clearly not ready for the evening to end, and after about two minutes of stage blackout, Segura reemerged and shouted, “How about two more?”, which provoked a loud cheer when the first encore song ‘Would Anyone Care?” started to play.
During the song, Segura came to the edge of the crowd barriers and sang certain parts of the track holding hands with the members of the audience, demonstrating that they weren’t alone. After the song concluded, the band played their closing song for the evening ‘Monster Made of Memories’, during which the Rivero raised a Union Jack, showing their love for the audience.
Overall, Citizen Soldier delivered a powerful, emotional, and highly interactive performance including stories from Jake Segura’s life that had strong sentimental value. Paired with the explosive opening from Kill The Lights, this night was truly a pleasure to watch, and one I doubt the audience will soon forget.
Setlist: 1. Bulletproof, 2. Life Support, 3. Figure Me Out, 4. Dead Butterflies, 5. Inner Critic, 6. Dead-End Life, 7. Burden, 8. I’m Not Okay, 9. You Are Enough, 10. Better Than I Used to Be, 11. Letdown, 12. Face to Face, 13. Thank You For Hating Me, 14. Would Anyone Care, 15. Monster Made of Memories
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