AFI / Sick Of It All / The Dear And The Departed

AFI are a band who’s audience has shifted quite considerably over recent years. Gone are the hardcore kids, the punks, the older fans of yesteryear, to be replaced by, as Lou Koller of support act Sick Of It All so eloquently put it: "16 year old girls with something stapled to their face."

As such, the setlist has changed with them, meaning only two songs from before 2003’s breakthrough LP ‘Sing The Sorrow’ were played.

But more on AFI later, first up are Las Vegas band The Dear And The Departed. They peddle a brand of melodic poppy rock that is just very safe and not terribly interesting.

The crowd’s rather feeble reaction does nothing to help shift the thought that they are destined to be an opening act for the rest of their careers if they don’t manage to write at least one interesting song.

Thankfully, second band, Sick Of It All are much more entertaining. They have been destroying stages consistently for nearly 25 years now, and show no signs of letting up the pace and energy for which they are known.

Mass circle pits, and a particularly bruising wall of death wake the crowd up from the slumber induced by The Dear And The Departed. A perfect warm up act.

And so we come to AFI. Theirs is a set that is crammed full of hits, albeit off just their major label records.

The three instrumental players come on stage and start off into ‘Medicate’ before frontman Davey Havok tears onto stage with the opening vocals.

From this point on, all eyes are focussed firmly on him, his on stage presence is simply fantastic.

That’s not to say the rest of the band aren’t equally as good, never stopping moving, always running, but Havok’s natural charisma overshadows everything.

This is his band, and without him they wouldn’t have half the popularity they have.

By the time the band kicks into ‘Girls Not Grey’ as second song, they have the already excitable crowd at fever pitch. A genuine hairs up on back of neck moment right there.

Inevitably that leads to a lull mid set. Sure there’s a couple of older songs including ‘Days Of The Phoenix’, but its largely full of tracks from last years ‘Crash Love’ and 2006’s ‘Decemberunderground’.

It is the reliance on the last three albums, at the expense of virtually anything from their earlier years including fan favourites ‘Totalimmortal’ and ‘God Called In Sick Today’ that really tarnishes this set.

That mid set lull is only really tempered by the inclusion of ‘Days Of The Phoenix’ and a riotous ‘Dancing Through Sunday’.

It is worth it though, for the ending duo of ‘Death Of Seasons’ and the anthemic ‘Miss Murder’.

‘Death Of Seasons’ is brutal and yet haunting on record, and if anything it was even more so here, with Havok screaming the last few lines over a haunting backdrop.

But it’s ‘Miss Murder’ that has become their definitive song after featuring on a Guitar Hero game. As such it is the one song that seems to unite the whole audience, from the older fans through to the younger ones acquired in recent years, in a mass singalong.

Unfortunately, the encore can only disappoint, and ‘Silver And Cold’ is really not a good choice of final song and leaves the crowd slightly subdued.

Overall then, a good gig, but far from a classic one. Having said that, the kids who mainly know the newer stuff seemed to love it, but the older fans will be bemoaning that lack of classics songs.

FUTURE GIGS

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