A River of Nightmares: Avenged Sevenfold and Good Charlotte Bring Their Co-Headlining Tour toTinley Park, IL

7/30/2026

By: Ari Karnezis

Typically, there are two types of people in the Chicagoland area during Lollapalooza weekend: those who brave the Windy City to attend the biggest festival of the summer and those who stay home. This year, a third group opted to attend a metal/pop-punk show in the suburbs. And in spite of a big festival weekend, thousands of fans also braved the late July heat to see Avenged Sevenfold and Good Charlotte at the Credit Union 1 Amphitheater in Tinley Park, Illinois, for their third stop on their North American tour. This tour comes on the heels of Avenged Sevenfold's latest release, a surprise EP Statica, which sees the metal band venture into a more experimental style. As for Good Charlotte, the legacy pop punk act is supporting their eighth album, Motel Du Cap, released in August 2025.

Kicking off the show and warming up the crowd was DJ Jaden Hammer, who provided covers and originals armed with a guitar and a board mixer. She amped up the audience with remixes of System of a Down's “Chop Suey!” Linkin Park’s “One Step Closer,” and a cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “The Hand That Feeds.” Following her was Statica, where members of Avenged performed their new EP in full offstage. The setup had no one onstage, just screens of eccentric religious images and closeups of the faceless band members playing. Is it everyone's cup of tea? Not exactly, but the 27-year-old band have absolutely earned the right to do what they want at this point in their career.

As the sun began to set on the amphitheater, Good Charlotte exploded onto the stage–literally and figuratively, as the pit began to heat up from the band's awesome pyrotechnics. The band kicked off with some of their classics “The Anthem” and “Girls & Boys.” In 2025, the band had released their eighth album, Motel Du Cap, after 30 years as a band, but as vocalist Joel Madden admitted, they had not gone on a proper headlining tour or played in the Chicago area in about a decade. Madden compared the tour to “back in the day when you'd get together with your pop punk friends and your metal friends in the backyard and spend the whole night passing the aux,” acknowledging the unusual mix of co-headliners but also mentioning how eager Avenged Sevenfold was to put together a tour with them and how “they don't give a fuck” (see also my aforementioned comment of the band earning the right to do what they want). Other highlights from their setlist included “Wondering” and “Hold On” from 2002's The Young and the Hopeless and “The Motivation Proclamation” from their 2000 self-titled debut album, but perhaps the best part of their set was their performance of “The River,” during which Avenged Sevenfold vocalist M. Shadows made a surprise appearance to sing his part of the song (for those like me who had no idea, it was a pleasant surprise to find out those are M. Shadows’ vocals in that second verse). After a few more of their greatest hits, the band would then take a bow with their 2002 hit “Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous.”

Avenged Sevenfold would then come out swinging to a sea of flashlights raised in the air. M. Shadows barely stood still throughout the whole performance, frequently shifting from stage right to stage left and remaining as close to the pit as physically possible. Guitarists Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance stood back to back during their most iconic solos, memorably during “Nightmare” and “Afterlife,” reminiscent of their music videos that defined my generation of metalheads’ teen years, proving time may not stand still, but this band’s stage presence remains absolutely timeless. The band’s setlist would be an amalgamation of songs that spanned their entire discography, but on this specific night, they decided to shake it up and swap 2018’s “The Stage” with “M.I.A.,” a deep cut from 2005’s City of Evil. Not only had they not played it on the tour yet, M. Shadows admitted they had not even practiced it–and yet they nailed the 20-year-old song they have only sporadically played live in the last decade. Perhaps the only disappointment or criticism of this setlist was it was simply not long enough. However, the band packed so much energy and passionate dedication into their 12 songs, and a frequent motto in the entertainment industry is “always leave them wanting more.” Avenged Sevenfold included several other staples in their performance, such as “Buried Alive” from Nightmare, “Shepherd of Fire” and “Hail to the King” from the album of the latter’s same name, closing out with their breakout and most successful single “Bat Country,” their earlier single that put them on the map “Unholy Confessions,” followed by a solid drum solo from Brooks Wackermann, and finally one of their latest singles “Cosmic” from their eighth album Life Is But a Dream… Despite lacking the same grit and rasp as in past performances (likely because he is now singing properly and preserving his vocal cords), M. Shadow’s vocals remained a highlight of their show, demonstrating his strength and ability, of course elevated by the rest of the band that has proven that Avenged Sevenfold still remains a stronghold in the modern metal scene.