Planet earth just experienced the hottest month ever recorded, and it was even warmer inside The Ritz in Ybor City on Thursday night when Underoath kicked off a two-night hometown residency.
“I’m burning alive,” Spencer Chamberlain, frontman for the Tampa band with multiple Grammy nominations, told a sold-out crowd.
Still, covered in sweat, and faced with dozens and dozens of bodies moshing and crowd surfing to the stage during the airtight,12-song, hour-long set, the 40-year-old said what was on everyone’s mind: “It’s good to be home baby.”
The sentiment, right before “Writing on the Walls”—a song from the band’s 2006 album, Define The Great Line—couldn’t have been closer to the truth.
Underoath reunited in 2015, just three years after breaking up with a farewell show at St. Petersburg’s Jannus Live. The hardcore group formed in Tampa walked away from music with six albums and a Grammy nomination under its belt.
In 2018, Chamberlain told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that the band’s success and schedule forced members to grow up fast, but also somewhat stunted their growth as people. They were overworked and more or less sidestepping the depression, breakups and families that marked their lives. “We just didn’t have time to be humans. It gets exhausting,” Chamberlain added.
[content-2] But Underoath clearly had unfinished business. It returned to Jannus just a year later, and in 2018 blew the reunion wide open with a sold-out show at Yuengling Center (where it was supposed to play this show, before switching to a two-night residency at The Ritz). At the time, the band was supporting a comeback album, Erase Me, with a lead single that was nominated for a Best Metal Performance Grammy. Last year, Underoath released Voyeurist, an album that earned another Grammy nomination for Best Recording Package.
At The Ritz on Thursday night, the band played in the company of people who helped them earn that nomination (Tampa artist Joel Cook, who worked on the design with Brandon Rike and Nate Utesch), plus longtime sound engineer JJ Revell who had Underoath sounding better than any metal band I have seen in that room, including the nights from 2004-2006 working there when it was Masquerade.
Upstairs on The Ritz balcony, family and friends—including toddlers—watched the band get back to its roots with performances of classics like set-closer “A Boy Brushed Red Living in Black and White” and “Reinventing Your Exit” where a kid no older than 13 crowd surfed to the stage and stood next to Chamberlain.
Chamberlain was only 20 years old when he joined Underoath, and while he struggled with his mental health before the band’s breakup, it was uplifting to see him guide the young fan to a safe exit off stage. Growing up looks different for everyone, but Thursday night’s show felt like the start of something new for Underoath, and the band seemed overjoyed to share it with family, friends and hometown fans (who also expressed concern after The Ghost Inside frontman Jonathan Vigil cut his band’s set short and went to the hospital after experiencing chest pain).
“I’m glad we get to do two shows in this room. Better than a room so far away from you,” Chamberlain said. “I can feel you tonight. It feels good to be home where we belong.”
