Breaking Benjamin Wakes The Fallen At Stir!

Story and Photos: Spencer Fleming

Nothing says summer like that first Stir Cove show of the season! This was a bit of a sleeper show for me. I know Breaking Benjamin and Staind are still pretty popular after becoming elder statesmen of the rock scene, but I had no idea it would sell out so quickly. Stir Cove packed like 5,000 people on Saturday (5.31.25). I was talking with some fans at the concert who said they hit some other dates on the tour and those cities were packing in 20,000 fans! Who knew?

In addition to Staind and Breaking Benjamin, the tour package included country-rockers Lakeview and the up-and-coming metalcore band Wage War. This was my third time shooting photos of Wage War so I was pretty excited. I really like their sound and was really looking forward to their set.

I didn't quite make it in time for Lakeview but I saw the artists taking pictures with fans in the crowd and people were pretty excited about it. It sounds like they rocked their set. I know they have a song with Gideon and I'm a huge fan of those southern boys, so I'm pretty sure they went over well with the Stir Cove crowd.

Wage War got the crowd warmed up with their heavy riffs and pop leaning melodies. I really like the mixture of screams and cleans that Wage War brings. They played a lot of songs off their latest album Stigma but they made sure to throw it back to one of their first big singles "Circle The Drain". The crowd was super pumped after Wage War tore down the stage.

Up next was Staind. I've never been a giant Staind fan but you have to respect their craft. Aaron Lewis and Mike Mushok know how to write hits. Nearly every song in their set had big radio airplay at some point. The band played through their whole discography kicking things off with thier latest banger "Lowest In Me". It's cool to see such a legacy band still shelling out the top ten hits like that. The craziest part about Staind's set was Aaron Lewis' voice. How can this guy smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol on stage the whole set and still sound good? The crowd took over on vocals during several of Staind's songs like "Outside", "Right Here Waiting" and arguably their biggest hit "It's Been A While", not that Aaron needed the help. Still reeling about the smoking haha! Oh well, it's like when the news asks someone who's turning 100 how they do it and they have a terribly unhealthy lifestyle. I guess for some people it just works out. Hopefully Staind can keep bringing the hits for more years to come.

Breaking Benjamin kept the crowd waiting in anticipation before busting out their hit "Failure". With fists in the air the fans were singing along loudly. Much like Staind, Breaking Benjamin has hits for days. Looking at the setlist there's barely a song I don't recognize, and I'm a casual radio fan! There were a ton of die-hards along the rail with Breaking Benjamin VIP badges. Breaking Benjamin has a pretty loyal following and it showed on Saturday. Everywhere I looked there were Breaking Benjamin shirts and one guy even had a huge Breaking Benjamin tattoo! BB did an awesome job rocking the Stir Cove fans well into the night. The only odd note for me was Benjamin's son. He joined the band for the whole set. I could see like one or two songs, but the whole show seemed a bit strange. I'm all for family first and father-son bonding but he didn't really sing most of the words and he only played one or two chords on guitar. Granted, if I was on the level of BB and if I wanted to bring my son on tour I probably wouldn't worry about what anyone thought about it, but just sayin.

Overall the show was awesome. I was able to bring my friend Dale and his son who just graduated college and I had fun hanging with them for a bit. I got to see all my photographer friends and lots of old friends I hadn't seen in a while. Nothing brings people together like concerts. They say if you go to a lot of concerts it can add years to your life. So get out there and find your new favorite band!

Thanks so much to Stir Cove for setting up photo access. Thanks for reading and we'll see you at the next one!