Anchored in the heart of downtown Atlanta in the shadow of the SkyView Ferris wheel and just steps from Centennial Olympic Park, The Tabernacle stands as both a historic landmark and one of the city’s most captivating live music venues. Hosting the first sold-out stop of Flyleaf with Lacey Sturm’s 20th Anniversary Tour, the building first opened more than a century ago as the Broughton Tabernacle Baptist Church before being transformed into a concert hall for the 1996 Summer Olympics. While its soaring architecture, vaulted ceilings, and old-world grandeur remain intact, the venue’s 2,600-person capacity and stacked balcony tiers somehow still create an unexpectedly intimate atmosphere, making it the perfect setting for a night built on nostalgia, emotion, and renewed energy.
Taking the stage shortly after 7:30 p.m. with the intensity of a band fully aware that opportunities like this can change trajectories, Heal The Hurt immediately transformed The Tabernacle from a room waiting for the headliner into one locked onto every breakdown, chorus, and emotional release. The rapidly ascending metalcore outfit attacked their set with the confidence of seasoned road veterans, delivering punishing renditions of original songs with a level of precision that belied their relative youth. Frontman Trevor Tyson from nearby Social Circle, Georgia, commanded the room with equal parts urgency and vulnerability, while the band’s rhythm section drove the performance with relentless force from the opening notes to the final crash of cymbals.
What separated Heal The Hurt from many emerging support acts was their refusal to treat the slot as a mere introduction. The emotional weight behind their tracks landed just as effectively as the heavier moments, creating a set that felt dynamic rather than one-dimensional. Their appearance alongside Flyleaf’s 20th Anniversary Tour arrives at a pivotal moment for the band, fresh off major touring opportunities, festival announcements, and momentum surrounding upcoming new music and their newly announced “No Hope In Hell Tour.” Judging by the early crowd response, Heal The Hurt is quickly graduating from promising opener to one of the more intriguing young names emerging from the modern metalcore scene.
Heal The Hurt
Trevor Tyson — Lead Vocals
Alec Gregory — Bass, clean vocals
Brandon Marlowe — Guitars
Kevin Schmitz — Drums
Wolves At The Gate brought a welcome dose of controlled chaos to the evening, delivering a set that balanced crushing heaviness with melodic accessibility in equal measure. Wasting little time getting the crowd engaged, the quartet tore through a collection of material immediately showcasing the band’s ability to shift seamlessly between soaring choruses and thunderous breakdowns. Frontman Nick Detty proved to be the focal point throughout the performance, effortlessly moving between clean vocals and harsher passages while the rest of the band (sans a bass player) maintained a level of tightness that kept every transition feeling purposeful and polished.
What made Wolves At The Gate particularly effective in the live setting was their ability to create genuine atmosphere without sacrificing momentum. Emotional pulls paired naturally with their driving intensity, giving the set a dynamic flow that prevented it from becoming a blur of distortion and volume. Rather than relying on theatrics or oversized production elements, the band allowed strong musicianship and thoughtful songwriting to carry their energetic performance. By the time they exited the stage, Wolves At The Gate had accomplished exactly what every support act hopes to achieve: winning over unfamiliar listeners while leaving longtime fans wanting considerably more.
Wolves At The Gate
Steve Cobucci — Rhythm guitar, clean vocals
Ben Summers — Bass, backing vocals (did not perform)
Nick Detty — Lead vocals, keyboards
Abishai Collingsworth — Drums
Joey Alarcon — Lead guitar
Twenty years after introducing a generation of rock fans to one of the most distinctive voices of the 2000s, Flyleaf returned to the stage with Lacey Sturm as though the intervening years had barely passed at all. From the opening notes of “In the Dark” and “Chasm,” it became immediately apparent that this was more than a nostalgia tour. Sturm attacked the stage with the same kinetic energy and emotional intensity that helped define Flyleaf’s earliest years, while the band behind her sounded refreshed, focused, and genuinely energized to be sharing the stage together once again. The chemistry that made Flyleaf such a compelling force in the mid-2000s remained remarkably intact, only now delivered with the confidence and perspective that comes from two decades of experience.
The setlist smartly balanced beloved staples with deeper cuts that rewarded longtime fans. “I’m So Sick” detonated like it was still 2005 while “Fully Alive,” “Cassie,” and the towering chorus of “All Around Me” transformed The Tabernacle into one massive singalong. Elsewhere, songs such as “Beautiful Bride,” “Saving Grace,” and “Stand” demonstrated that the band had little interest in simply recreating their debut album note for note, instead choosing to celebrate the full arc of the Lacey Sturm era. Sturm’s voice retained the same unique ability to pivot from vulnerability to ferocity within a single verse, a trait that continues to separate Flyleaf from nearly every band that emerged alongside them during the era’s alternative rock boom.
What ultimately made the evening resonate was the sense that this reunion carried genuine purpose rather than merely capitalizing on anniversary nostalgia. Between songs, Sturm connected with the capacity audience in a manner that felt conversational rather than scripted, reinforcing the authenticity that has long served as the band’s defining characteristic. By the time “All Around Me” closed the evening, the adoring capacity crowd had witnessed something that felt considerably larger than a tour stop — the reopening of a chapter many fans assumed had closed for good. Judging by the reaction inside The Tabernacle, Flyleaf with Lacey Sturm may have spent years apart, but their connection with audiences remains very much alive.
The first core leg of this tour wraps up on Saturday, August 1, at the House of Blues Anaheim in Anaheim, California. Following a few weeks off, Flyleaf with Lacey Sturm picks up with back-to-back nights at the House of Blues Orlando in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, on August 28 and 29.
Flyleaf with Lacey Sturm
James Culpepper — Drums, percussion
Sameer Bhattacharya — Lead guitar, backing vocals, keyboards, piano
Jared Hartmann — Rhythm guitar
Pat Seals — Bass, backing vocals
Lacey Sturm — Lead vocals
Setlist:
1.) In the Dark
2.) Chasm
3.) Again
4.) Fire Fire
5.) Beautiful Bride
6.) Great Love
7.) Cassie
8.) Freedom
9.) Stand
10.) Cage on the Ground
11.) This Close
12.) Saving Grace
13.) Call You Out
14.) Fully Alive
15.) Sorrow
16.) So I Thought
17.) I’m So Sick
18.) All Around Me
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Elliott is a music photographer covering shows in Atlanta, Georgia, and the surrounding area. The highlight of his photography career was back in the early ’90s, when he sold Neil Diamond the rights to his negatives from a show and then purchased a set of tires for his 1979 280ZX during college with the money.