The final night of Nonpoint’s ‘Painful Statements’ Tour was an unexpected one. After a neighborhood power outage in December, Nonpoint’s original appearance at The Apollo AC in Belvidere, Illinois was rescheduled to the tail end of their 2025 anniversary tour. The fans didn’t refund their tickets, but instead eagerly awaited the new date, and showed up a month later, ready to rock.
Despite being slotted at the end of the new tour, featuring openers Crobot and Heartsick, the original local support was still on the bill, and they had plenty of fans there in attendance.
So Called Saints started the show off early, with the Sunday night crowd already packing the ground floor of the downtown ballroom. So Called Saints came in hot, bringing in some heavy tracks to kick off the evening. The pit broke out into a frenzy for the heaviest tracks, including a hard cover of ‘Come Out and Play’ by The Offspring, which turned the moshing into something of a dance party.
Next to the stage, Finding Ghosts, kept the energy going, with an energetic stage presence and enthusiasm that resonated back into the crowd. The lead vocalist was having a blast, bounding across the stage, so enthused that his jumps and kicks ended up snapping the belt off of his pants. “You might see my ass,” he joked with the fans, as they led the wild crowd through another heavy set that would satiate the fiends in the circle pit.
Apollo AC mainstays From Ashes to Embers were the final opener of the night. Thanking the local radio station and the venue for the constant support, the local crowd went crazy for them. They received thunderous support from the local crowd, with the dual vocalists owning the stage and keeping the crowd hyped as they worked their way through their set.
Starting earlier than anticipated, they were able to fit in a cover of ‘Chop Suey’ by System of a Down, which was an unexpected treat for the fans. Their final track of the night Down the Drain, saw both singers enter the circle pit, and kick the song off with as close to a wall of death that you can get in a ballroom venue. Both the band and crowd kept up the pace until the very end.
With the ‘Painful Statements’ Tour to start off 2025, Nonpoint came out of the gate big, with a tour celebrating the 25th and 20th anniversaries of two of their biggest albums: Statement and To the Pain, respectively. The special tour included a double set, performing Statement start to finish, and To the Pain finish to start. The reverse order of the latter gave that anticipation for some of the final tracks of the evening “Alive and Kicking,” and “Bullet With a Name.”
The Belvidere crowd was lucky for the postponement of their show, because with the new date came the new setlist, giving them the full experience of the double album experience. For decades, Nonpoint has been one of the most underrated nu-metal and hard rock groups, putting out consistent discography and live performances. Despite numerous appearances in the area over the past 15 years, they constantly draw a solid crowd, hungry for some nonstop aggressive tracks and a chance to go wild.
It was a unique experience for a show of this nature, for the fans and the band. Hardcore fans were especially lucky to be able to hear some of the songs that have never been performed before, while the band got the opportunity to bring back some tracks and offer them new life through live performances. Going back to Statement, their third album, you can truly see some of the experimentation in several of the tracks, and a style that isn’t present in the newer albums.
Along with the experience of hearing these tracks, there were interludes featuring vocalist Elias Soriano discussing the history of the band, songs, and moments that defined Nonpoint as a whole. The nearly 2-hour set saw the crowd alive and kicking (pun intended) until the very end, with the explosive “Bullet With a Name” being the final track of the night, where the crowd gave everything that they had left in the tank, without a care in the world other than celebrating the show that they had been waiting for.
Nonpoint’s ‘Painful Statements’ Tour has seemingly wrapped after 13 dates, however, if they choose to do another leg, this is Nonpoint like you haven’t seen them before, truly. The one constant is the fierce performance that they’ve come to be known for.
