A fan named Zakk sang “Unholy Confessions” with Avenged Sevenfold at Montreal’s Centre Bell on August 8, with M. Shadows backing him.
The sign worked. M. Shadows spotted it from the stage at Centre Bell on August 8, waved security over, and hauled the man holding it up onto the stage beside him.
Then he gave him the microphone and stepped back.
The fan, identified on Setlist.fm as Zakk, took the first verse and chorus of “Unholy Confessions” with Avenged Sevenfold behind him and Shadows singing backup, holding the screams without any obvious trouble. Fan-shot video of it has spread widely over the past few days and can be seen down below.
The band picked a song that carries some weight to hand over. “Unholy Confessions” was the lead single from Waking The Fallen, the 2003 album that made them, and it remains the track most often named as their best. Kerrang! ranked it second among all Avenged Sevenfold songs, Metal Hammer‘s parent title sixth. It sat second-to-last in a twelve-song set that closed with “Cosmic” from 2023’s Life Is But A Dream…, with a drum solo tacked onto the end of the guest spot.
The Montreal set leaned hard on the back catalogue. It opened with “Nightmare“, preceded by Kavinsky‘s “Nightcall” played from tape while the crowd ran a phone light show off a QR code, and included “Afterlife“, “Shepherd Of Fire“, “Buried Alive“, “Seize The Day“, “Hail To The King” and “Bat Country“. Only two songs came from anything recent. When the band last played Centre Bell in July 2023 they aired seven tracks from the album they were touring.
Surprises have been the theme of this run. Avenged Sevenfold are co-headlining North America with Good Charlotte, a tour that opened July 25 at Thunder Ridge Nature Arena in Ridgedale, Missouri. Two days before that they dropped Statica, a four-track EP made with producer Joe Barresi and built on electronics and processed vocals, with no announcement at all. On opening night the printed set times listed an unknown act called Statica between opener Jayden Hammer and Good Charlotte, which turned out to be the band themselves, playing the EP in full from backstage and beaming it to the crowd on the venue screens. Reaction from their own fanbase has been split.
Nine dates remain before the run finishes at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles.
Avenged Sevenfold 2026 tour dates:
- Aug 12 – Xfinity Center, Mansfield, MA
- Aug 14 – Freedom Mortgage Pavilion, Camden, NJ
- Aug 16 – PNC Music Pavilion, Charlotte, NC
- Aug 18 – MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre, Tampa, FL
- Aug 21 – Dos Equis Pavilion, Dallas, TX
- Aug 23 – Ball Arena, Denver, CO
- Aug 25 – Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre, Salt Lake City, UT
- Aug 27 – Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, Phoenix, AZ
- Aug 30 – BMO Stadium, Los Angeles, CA
