The Hartford Healthcare Amphitheater in Bridgeport, Connecticut, welcomed Coheed And Cambria, Mastodon, and Periphery to their unique venue for the first show of the season. Impressive is a word not used lightly, but it fits tonight as this evening was a sensory overload of a rock ‘n’ roll experience.
Coheed And Cambria – Mastodon – Periphery
Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater, Bridgeport, Connecticut – 25 May 2025
Words And Photography: Jody Wilk
The Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater is a 5700-capacity boutique venue that was made out of an old minor league baseball field. The top of the venue has a 60,000-square-foot tensile membrane roof, which makes it look like an old-time carnival tent.
I arrived when the parking lots opened at 4:30, and there were not too many cars there yet. I was worried the crowd would be small, but by showtime, the place was packed pretty well. Doors opened for regular ticket holders around 5:30, while the meet and greet people were let in early to get to see Coheed And Cambria play a couple of songs.
Once inside the venue, fans flocked to the merch stands and to concessions to get a drink and some food. One thing that makes this venue unique is that they have food trucks and stands featuring many local restaurants.
Little Pub has a BBQ stand, The Gotham Burger Social Club was selling Nostalgic Smash Burgers upstairs, Tasty Yolk had Nashville Hot Chicken sandwiches and more. Walter’s Hot Dog Truck drew a crowd, and Two Roads Brewery, Bad Sons Brewery, and Fiddlehead Brewing Company were all represented.
There were also places selling popcorn, Mexican and Venezuelan food, pretzels, nachos, and just about anything you might want to eat at a concert.
Periphery
Opening the night was Periphery, a Progressive Metal band formed in 2005 by Misha Mansoor. It seems that many people have a hard time describing what genre to classify them as, and even I think they are heavier than what I would consider traditional Progressive Metal.
One of the first things I noticed was that they had three guitarists on stage and no bassist. They hit the stage with Reptile, a 16-minute song off from their album Periphery IV: HAIL STAN.
In the second half of the set, they played Wildfire and Atropos from their most recent release, Periphery V: Djent Is Not a Genre. Spencer Sotelo has a powerful voice that varies wonderfully from a heavy melodic feel to a deep guttural sound.
Guitarists Misha Mansoor, Jake Bowen, and Mark Holcomb do a great job complimenting each other’s playing styles throughout the songs. This was a great, well-received set from Periphery, which perfectly set the tone of the evening.
Mastodon
Mastodon hit the stage around 7:20, and the fans really started filling in the venue. This Heavy Metal band, formed in 2001, still has three original members in Brann Dailor, Bill Kelliher, and Troy Sanders.
The Current touring and session members include keyboardist João Nogueira and the most recent addition, Nick Johnston, on guitar, who seemed to feel right at home playing with the band. He replaced Brent Hinds, an original member of the band after he and the band parted ways earlier this year.
It is hard to really place Mastodon into any one category as they have influences from pretty much all genres of Metal. Mastodon has had six Grammy nominations and won one for Best Metal Performance for Sultan’s Curse. I am still not sure why this is not on their setlist.
Mastodon’s bass player and lead singer really put on a great performance while banging his head with long white hair flying about, along with his wizardly beard.
Drummer Brann Dailor takes on lead vocals at times and does a killer job while not missing a beat. Later in the set, they brought out a big green Cyclops monster that ran around the stage. Too bad it was after the three songs we were allotted to photograph.
With quite a different setlist than the last time I saw them on tour, where they played Leviathan in its entirety, this time they touched on all of their albums in a fantastic 14 song set.
Mastodon left the crowd exhausted from moshing about and banging their heads.
Coheed And Cambria
Coheed And Cambria are a progressive rock band from Nyack, New York, and frontman Claudio Sanchez mentioned that these few shows are like hometown shows for them.
Almost all of the Coheed And Cambria albums are concept albums based on a science fiction story. Vaxis III: The Father Of Make Believe, their most recent album, was released in March and was described by MetalTalk as “a glorious blend of orchestral beauty, progressive rock, and epic storytelling.”
An exciting set opened with Yesterday’s Lost, the first of seven songs from Vaxis III. I love it when a band that has been around for thirty years can still release new music and tour in support of it rather than only playing their old songs.
We were allowed to photograph six songs in order to capture the giant blow-up that was inflated behind drummer Josh Eppard. What appeared to be a warrior with lit-up goggles and spiked shoulder pads stayed up for about six songs, giving a cool theatrical feel to the show.
Tonight was a thrilling 15-song, one-hour and forty-five-minute set, which also included a cover of Danzig’s Mother.
The Keywork logo showing the beam of light that connects the planets and the stars, allowing for easy transportation between them, flashed on the screen behind the band.
There were also spectacular video clips relating to the album Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madness.
Claudio broke out a double-neck guitar for Welcome Home, the last song of the night. With lots of smoke, red lights and strobes going, you could see fans crowd surfing up to the pit.
The crowd chanted along, “Whoa, oh, oh, Whoa, oh, oh,” and it all made for a sensory overload of a rock ‘n’ roll experience.
The tour rolls on, with tonight’s show at Empower Federal Credit Union Amphitheater at Lakeview, Syracuse.
