"Who is the crowd, that peers through the cage, as we preform here, upon the stage?"

The hard rock/metal band Avenged Sevenfold is back in action with their seventh studio album titled "The Stage" with the fist song off the album being (of course) "The Stage" About two weeks ago, they also released a music video for the song. (If you already know about the band, you can skip the rest of this paragraph as it is a long article) For those of you who don't know, Avenged Sevenfold (a.k.a A7X) was originally a metal band from Orange County California. The band formed with the members Matt Shadows (vocals), Synster Gates (lead guitar), Zacky Vengeance (supporting guitar), Johnny Christ (bass), and Jimmy "The Rev"Sullivan (drums). The band currently holds all the same members since its formation except for Sullivan who tragically died as a result of a drug overdose in 2009. He has been replace by a few drummers over time including Mike Portney, Arin Ilejay, and the current drummer Brooks Wakerman. Enough about them, lets talk about the video.

If you haven't seen the video yet, I advise you to watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBYVlFXsEME

The music video tells about history through significant events during many different places like Egypt, France, Rome, and even the United states. The video shows the history of ways humans would kill each other up until modern times, with the weapons and tactics ranging from the use of spears, to cannons, to even modern day nukes. But what does it all mean?

In the beginning, people gather into the theater very curious of their surroundings. When the play starts, the puppets begin killing one another and the audience is visibly entertained by this. This might show that we as humans will always come to see death as entertaining in some way, if we think it is fake. Two of the older men in the audience seemed to be somewhat distraught by the first death featuring the cavemen but eventually they came to still enjoy the rest of the show. This might show that even the oldest and wisest people still fall victim to this form of "entertainment". Much of the killing is against those who are defenseless. This can be seen during the Spanish vs the Aztec scene in which the Spanish bring out a cannon and the only thing the Aztecs have are shark tooth swords. Eventually, we see what we can assume to be WWI as shown by the two tanks and the American vs. German forces. After this scene, we see flowers begin to bloom but they are quickly bombed and trampled by a plane and a tank. This might show that even in times of peace and harmony, our instincts tell us we must fight.

Eventually, all the people in the audience are turned into puppets who are controlled by several political figures. Of these figures are North Korean dictator Kim Jun Un, The British prime minister Theresa May, former Secretary of state and possible president (don't get butt hurt Trump supporters) Hillary Clinton, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and finally Chinese president Xi Jinping. This states that the political figures are the ones that control our lives today but there is still one thing above even them. Above the figures we see the hands of a skeleton that is running the show. We can assume that this thing either represents death or is just simply thrown in there because DEATHBAT is the mascot for A7X. The skeletal hand then presses a red button that is assumed to be a a giant nuke. Everything plunges into static and once again we see the caveman. This suggests that because of what we have done in the past, we will continue to in future with more deadly technology. As of right now Nukes might just be the deadliest weapons in the world so they are bound to be used one day. And with the reoccurring theme of killing the innocent and defenseless, no one will survive. After all this, it can be assumed that the world will revert back to the dawn of humanity and it is the decision of the new human race to decide if they will choose a future of death and destruction, or a life of peace and prosperity.

Be sure to leave a comment of what you thought of the song or music video.