![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oritsu_luvLast night, Cy and I went to see Anti-Flag play at Slim's.
I was my first time being back at Slim's in a while. I forgot how much I love it. It's so nice and small.
The show was an Aiden/Anti-flag co-headlining (mostly, Aiden played for 45 minutes, AF played for an hour and something). It was really easy to tell the Anti-flag fans from the Aiden fans, because the latter leaned towards the teenage, black eyeliner, hot-topic crowd.
We got there for the last few songs of the opening band, who were this Canadian hardcore (?) band with lots of screaming and long hair. Not really my thing.
Then came Aiden. I didn't know too much about Aiden. I mean, I knew who they were (black hair, eye liner, My Chemical Romance type of lyrics), a few of their singles, that WiLL Francis the singer/front man was a heroin addict by the time he was 15 or so, and almost died before he got clean, that he has a side project as the SM leaning pan-sexual William Control, and he is also friends with Jeffree Star. (Or at least, Jeffree was in one of hteir videos.)
Here is what I learned about Aiden: Their music is a lot harder than their singles would lead you to believe, and includes lyrics like the one we were all instructed by WiLL to sing: "Oh, it's up to me to make you fucking bleed. We are the scavengers, the scavenger of the damned". (The "Oh" is very important, btw.) WiLL also swears a lot.
I also learned: WiLL Francis is a very good frontman, and also, a genuinely sweet guy. He tried really hard to get the crowd into the show, even to the extent of jumping down into the circle pit and singing half the song standing there, singing right up to the fans who clustered near him. And free chance he had - between songs, during a song while they were fixing his microphone, he went to the edge of the stage and leaned down to talk to fans, even saying into the mic "It's so good to see some familiar faces. How have you guys been?"
He was also fully aware that at least half the audience hated his band - he asked everyone to who hated the band to raise their hands and counted them outloud, then he thanked them for standing there, and said "If by the end of our set, you still don't think we're a decent band...well, this is 45 minutes of your life that you'll never get back!". (It was so awesome!) He took care to give shout outs to both Anti-Flag (recognizing how long they'd been around, that he himself has been going to see them for 10 years, and how much an honor it was to be out with them) and to local bands like Rancid.
He also gave a speech to all the kids 'of the homosexual persuasion'. He said that to be a minority in a minority took so much courage, and talked about how brave all the gay and lesbian kids were to be who they were are and not hide their real selves, and how he supported them in every single thing, and wanted to give them all the encouragement he could.
I have to say, WiLL Francis definitely won me over!
Then Anti-flag came on. BUT no Justin. Number 2 announced that Justin had a death in the family and they had put him on a plane to go home. He said they'd all talked about what they should do, considered canceling the tour, but decided to keep on going. Number 2 did all the singing, with this guy named Matt (who had learned all the songs in a day!) doing his guitar parts and background vocals.
It was weird not to have Justin there, since he is of course, the front man and lead singer, and also awesome, but in a way, it made the show really great, because it was up to all of us, the fans, to make sure the show went on. Number 2 was singing his heart out,and so we were we. We sang as loudly as we could along with #2, especially when his mic gave out during one song, jumped, danced, pumped our fists and clapped our hands. #2 seemed really touched by it, he thanked us profusely after every single song. It really made me think about how true it is when they say that there are no concerts without an audience, and it's both the bands and the fans that make a show. I really felt like we were one, like we were all there for each other.
The section we were standing in happened to be a bunch of girls, and from time to time we caught each other's eyes and smiled, and I really felt a real solidarity as we sang and danced and rocked out. A sense of being together in being girls who were fans of the music, as opposed to teenie boppers squealing about babies and hotness. And that was also really great.
I'd been feeling a little tired before the show, but afterwards I felt really energized. It was great.
I was my first time being back at Slim's in a while. I forgot how much I love it. It's so nice and small.
The show was an Aiden/Anti-flag co-headlining (mostly, Aiden played for 45 minutes, AF played for an hour and something). It was really easy to tell the Anti-flag fans from the Aiden fans, because the latter leaned towards the teenage, black eyeliner, hot-topic crowd.
We got there for the last few songs of the opening band, who were this Canadian hardcore (?) band with lots of screaming and long hair. Not really my thing.
Then came Aiden. I didn't know too much about Aiden. I mean, I knew who they were (black hair, eye liner, My Chemical Romance type of lyrics), a few of their singles, that WiLL Francis the singer/front man was a heroin addict by the time he was 15 or so, and almost died before he got clean, that he has a side project as the SM leaning pan-sexual William Control, and he is also friends with Jeffree Star. (Or at least, Jeffree was in one of hteir videos.)
Here is what I learned about Aiden: Their music is a lot harder than their singles would lead you to believe, and includes lyrics like the one we were all instructed by WiLL to sing: "Oh, it's up to me to make you fucking bleed. We are the scavengers, the scavenger of the damned". (The "Oh" is very important, btw.) WiLL also swears a lot.
I also learned: WiLL Francis is a very good frontman, and also, a genuinely sweet guy. He tried really hard to get the crowd into the show, even to the extent of jumping down into the circle pit and singing half the song standing there, singing right up to the fans who clustered near him. And free chance he had - between songs, during a song while they were fixing his microphone, he went to the edge of the stage and leaned down to talk to fans, even saying into the mic "It's so good to see some familiar faces. How have you guys been?"
He was also fully aware that at least half the audience hated his band - he asked everyone to who hated the band to raise their hands and counted them outloud, then he thanked them for standing there, and said "If by the end of our set, you still don't think we're a decent band...well, this is 45 minutes of your life that you'll never get back!". (It was so awesome!) He took care to give shout outs to both Anti-Flag (recognizing how long they'd been around, that he himself has been going to see them for 10 years, and how much an honor it was to be out with them) and to local bands like Rancid.
He also gave a speech to all the kids 'of the homosexual persuasion'. He said that to be a minority in a minority took so much courage, and talked about how brave all the gay and lesbian kids were to be who they were are and not hide their real selves, and how he supported them in every single thing, and wanted to give them all the encouragement he could.
I have to say, WiLL Francis definitely won me over!
Then Anti-flag came on. BUT no Justin. Number 2 announced that Justin had a death in the family and they had put him on a plane to go home. He said they'd all talked about what they should do, considered canceling the tour, but decided to keep on going. Number 2 did all the singing, with this guy named Matt (who had learned all the songs in a day!) doing his guitar parts and background vocals.
It was weird not to have Justin there, since he is of course, the front man and lead singer, and also awesome, but in a way, it made the show really great, because it was up to all of us, the fans, to make sure the show went on. Number 2 was singing his heart out,and so we were we. We sang as loudly as we could along with #2, especially when his mic gave out during one song, jumped, danced, pumped our fists and clapped our hands. #2 seemed really touched by it, he thanked us profusely after every single song. It really made me think about how true it is when they say that there are no concerts without an audience, and it's both the bands and the fans that make a show. I really felt like we were one, like we were all there for each other.
The section we were standing in happened to be a bunch of girls, and from time to time we caught each other's eyes and smiled, and I really felt a real solidarity as we sang and danced and rocked out. A sense of being together in being girls who were fans of the music, as opposed to teenie boppers squealing about babies and hotness. And that was also really great.
I'd been feeling a little tired before the show, but afterwards I felt really energized. It was great.
