Concert Recap: Skillet in Myrtle Beach, SC (March 20, 2026)

For those of us that love live music and attend concerts on a regular basis throughout the year, the one thing we're constantly trying to replicate is that feeling we had at our very first show — that experience of seeing an artist whose music has strongly resonated with you and feeling the boom of the thunderous sound coming out of the house amplifiers for the first time is an adrenaline high that simply can't be described. Everyone has to experience it at least once to truly understand what the power of live music feels like, and one time is all it takes to get hooked on it.

I've been lucky enough to attend more shows than I can count post-pandemic, but before that, it was an eventful year if I made it to just one or two. My first concert was a Skillet show on May 16, 2014 at Temple Baptist Church in New Bern, NC, just a short drive away from my hometown in Jacksonville, NC. At the time, the band was promoting their 2013 Rise album, and I remember everything about that day from beginning to end. From that point forward, I knew that live music was one of my favorite things, and that I wanted to experience it as much as possible. Skillet's show blew me away, and I'll never forget how impactful that concert was for me.

Fast forward 12 years, and I found myself finally getting a second chance to see Skillet live, this time at the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach, SC on the penultimate stop of their spring tour. At this point, the band had released four full-length albums since the last time I'd seen them, and I was excited to get to hear some songs at this show that weren't released yet around the time of my first Skillet show. I was also curious to see how their live performance and production had changed after over a decade since my introduction to their show, as well as if time was starting to catch up to them since it had felt like forever since my first time seeing them. Despite my concerns, I can safely say that Skillet's energy and overall live show is just as dynamic and animated as they were almost a decade and a half ago, if not more.

For this tour, Skillet had one opening support act in the form of the New Castle, IN-based hard rock band The Protest. Despite their 15-year tenure, the announcement of this tour was my first time seeing and hearing of this band, and by the end of their set, I wished I had them on my radar much earlier. Their set had the perfect energy to warm the crowd up for Skillet, but energetic enough to have the audience excited about their performance, as opposed to watching the clock and counting down for the headliner. With there only being two artists on this bill, The Protest had a pretty lengthy set for an opening act, blazing through 11 songs over the course of their allotted timeframe. From their latest single "Chains are for Breaking" to their 2014 cut "Welcome to the Freakshow," the band had no problem getting the crowd on their feet, and it was clear that they made several new fans at this show. They made a great first impression for a lot of people in that venue, myself included, and I'm sure I'm not the only one looking forward to the day they return to the area.

The Protest Setlist:

1. Paper Tiger
2. Show Up to the Showdown
3. Legacy
4. Dying Breath
5. Greater
6. Bad Self
7. Welcome to the Freakshow
8. Take it Back
9. What Else You Got?
10. Chains are for Breaking
11. Noise Revolution

Skillet wasted no time getting their set started, kicking things off with "Surviving the Game," the lead single from 2021's Dominion album. From the opening note, this crowd was giving the band everything they had, jumping and singing along to every word, and the band seemed to feed off that energy and looked like they were having the time of their lives on that stage. Skillet's setlist was a healthy balance of the hits and singles from the last 16 years, along with a few fan-favorite deep cuts, with a piano and vocal version of "Never Surrender" perhaps being the biggest surprise of the night. For songs like "Awake and Alive," "Not Gonna Die," and "Comatose," cellist Tate Olsen joined the band on stage, which is always a treat to see, especially as a former band kid myself.

Throughout the night, I found myself transported back to my first concert in 2014, and even comparing certain aspects with each other. The stage banter from frontman John Cooper was just as great this time around, and it felt more condensed and straight to the point as there weren't any super long pauses between songs. Cooper made a point to connect with the audience and express the band's appreciation for a crowd as great as this sold-out House of Blues audience, and he also recognized people that were also at their show at The Ritz in Raleigh, NC the previous night. At 50 years old, his voice was still in great shape, even adding some varying degrees of harsh vocals here and there that I can't remember hearing at my first show 12 years ago. While a lot of the songs are downtuned now instead of staying in their original key, the overall vibe of those songs are still intact.

The band as a whole is as tight as ever from a musical perspective, with guitarist Seth Morrison and drummer Jen Ledger never missing a step, even while interacting with the crowd in the middle of their performance. Korey Cooper does an incredible job of holding each song down on rhythm guitar, keyboards, and backing vocals, with her musical versatility perhaps being one of the band's most valuable attributes. Ledger's vocal prowess can't be understated either, with her voice becoming a huge part of the band's sound during her time in the band, and fans lost their minds when she left the drumset to walk the stage while singing on "Hero." Production-wise, the stage lighting is some of the best I've ever seen, and the utilization of fog geysers makes for a great effect at all the right moments.

Fun fact — when I first saw Skillet in 2014, I brought a point-and-shoot camera and took photos from the crowd. At the time, I didn't have any aspirations of being a concert photographer, I just wanted to have photos with better quality than my old cell phone at the time to look back at from the show. Over a decade later, here I am with a photo pass and properly photographing the very first band I ever saw live from the photo pit. Us photographers normally get just the first three songs to shoot from the pit, then from the crowd for the rest of the show, but Skillet blessed us with permission to shoot the first four, and they jam-packed so many great photo moments into those 12-15 minutes. From Cooper's cryo-cannon arm sleeves at the end of "Rise," to the inclusion of cellist Tate Olsen for "Awake and Alive," it was such a blast shooting those first four songs.

The band members are also super photographer-friendly/camera-conscious, with the band making eye contact with the cameras whenever they see them. Even Jen Ledger, who was barely visible from the photo pit because of how high her drumset was lifted from the stage, always knew when the cameras were on her, and whether she was obstructed by her cymbal stands or not, she still made a point to smile for the camera. Additionally, the band members made a point to pose for a few seconds to make sure us photographers got the shot, instead of just giving a quick glance and making us pray the photo was in focus. The band truly is a photographer's dream, from their camera awareness to the lighting design, and I can't say enough how great of an experience it was to photograph them.

Lastly, this crowd was much more intense than I remember that of my first show. This House of Blues was completely sold out, these people were packed like sardines, and they all knew every single word to every single song. Even when I was up in the balcony for the second half of the show, everybody up there was singing along to every song, even the deep cuts. The energy in that building was palpable, and it was hard to not get swept up in it. There were several times in which I felt like I went back in time to when I was a teen in 2014 attending my first concert and just being in awe of what I was experiencing, and it was awesome to relive that feeling while seeing the band that started it all for me.

Skillet Setlist:

1. Surviving the Game
2. Feel Invincible
3. Rise
4. Awake and Alive
5. Sick of It
6. Legendary
7. Ash in the Wind
8. Never Surrender (unplugged)
9. Whispers in the Dark
10. Lions
11. Those Nights
12. Hero
13. Not Gonna Die
14. Unpopular
15. Psycho in My Head
16. Comatose
17. Monster
18. The Resistance

All in all, I knew that seeing Skillet again would be a good time, but it turned out even better than I had anticipated. The setlist, the crowd, the energy, everything about this show was on point, and while I don't know when I'll be able to see them again, I just hope it happens sooner than another 12 years from now.

Skillet will be heading to Europe and the UK in April and May, then returning to the US all summer, with shows being booked all the way up until September, from headline shows to festival appearances. For all tour dates and to buy tickets, click here.

To keep up with The Protest, click here.

To keep up with Skillet, click here.