Let's end March 2026 with a look at what St. Ignace deathcore quartet Heavy Lies The Crown have been up to this month! Before they kicked off their March tour run, they posted this vertical video on their Facebook page on March 2nd featuring jam footage of the band (sans Bubba), with Brandon manning the camera in literal selfie-mode at one point. Obviously, this is just a teaser, and I do have a hunch that there's a lot more that Brandon filmed here before it was edited down to 12 seconds, but give it a watch below!
On March 5th, the guys began their first tour run of 2026, which saw them play four Lower Peninsula dates in four days, none closer to the Soo than the tour opener in Bay City on the 5th. All four dates saw Heavy Lies The Crown play alongside their friends in Detroit metalcore band Nothing After This, whose bassist Rob Vandewiele served as a temporary fill-in with H.L.T.C. at their final 2025 gigs. Frontman Brandon West shot this 5 seconds-long video of everyone in their tour vehicle en route to Bay City, and it was raining en route, so they definitely didn't need the sunglasses seen in this video! Updates from that night's show or the March 6th concert in Chesterfield didn't immediately follow, but on the 7th, Brandon starred in this vertical update video, where he highlighted how the first two shows went, which also let them debut not just Bubba on bass, but also their new live rig, and things were loud on night #2.
Apparently, there was monsoon-level rain and tornado sightings in their area, and while their tonneau cover protecting their merchandise was torn, it's obviously a good thing that Heavy survived the heavy forecast intact! The guys had spent the night in Chesterfield and were on their way for show #3 in Battle Creek after that video went up, so give the update video a watch at this link! In their first live video with their current lineup, they posted this 18 second video from the Battle Creek show at The Music Factory, and while short and dark, it's a solid horizontal video that I wish was uploaded in a longer form factor! Give it a watch for yourselves below!
After "stomping their ground and making prints" in Battle Creek, Brandon starred in this vertical update video from the tour vehicle on March 8th to reflect on the previous night's gig, but he's hard to hear for much of the minute-long runtime (my best guess is he accidentally covered the microphone while recording). He also plugged the tour finale that night in Grand Rapids, and they definitely posted some neat photos on Facebook after the fact, so crawl their Facebook page since March 6th to see what they have uploaded from the four dates! Their next uploaded video from the tour comes from Heavy Lies The Crown's concert on March 6th at The Diesel Concert Lounge in Chesterfield (technically New Baltimore), which was their second and longest concert video with their current lineup as of its its upload on the 11th. Thankfully also horizontal (if still shorter than I'd like), it is a high quality recording while it lasts, and it sees the guys playing part of their classic title track "Knucklebutter".
The video description compares Brandon's scream here to a dolphin, raven, and/or a robot shutting down, but regardless, he has some power in that voice, so give this H.L.T.C. video a watch for yourselves below!
Unfortunately, their two most recent videos (a highlight of clips from the tour from March 15th and a similar longer video from March 20th) can't be embedded here because Facebook content matched the backing audio on both, as the band opted to sub in their newest studio original "Rewind" rather than let the raw concert audio speak for itself. This is high quality footage, why not post it in unedited raw form, especially to show off the new lineup for more than 38 seconds? The longer of the two (which also isn't forcibly crammed into the vertical "Reel" dimensions with pillarboxing) also has road footage from the tour and some video of the guys hanging out between concerts, so it's a nice sampler of what they got up to downstate, even if you don't actually hear what happened! In their most recent Facebook update, Heavy announced a surprise concert for this Saturday in Alpena, so what should you know there?
The guys will be among the openers for Alpena nu metal band Living Unwell at a "local DIY metal show" at Friendly Foodees, and while not their closest scheduled concert to the Soo ahead (their East Jordan show on May 3rd is a half hour closer), it is good to see Brandon, Jaxon, Bubba, and Blaze playing another Northern Michigan date! Click here for more details if you're interested in the near 3 hour drive downstate on Saturday, and we are now caught up for Heavy Lies The Crown updates (again), so stay tuned for more from them when it rolls in! Thanks everyone!
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