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Nottingham's Rock City is quietly simmering with excitement and anticipation tonight. It's been several years since punk legends AFI embarked on a full UK tour, which makes this sold out gig the place to be this evening. The crowd hardly dares to move inside the venue incase they miss anything or that all important view of the stage is lost. There's a sea of black hair, eyeliner and tattoos, and down the front stands one lonely 10" mo-hawk.
Up first are punk under-dogs The Explosion, five guys from New York making a bloody good racket. No gimmicks and no fuss, just infectious punk rock anthems to get the crowd going. Sounding like Anti-Flag meets Less Than Jake without the brass, and rougher round the edges, the band throw themselves into an energetic set mostly made up of songs from the 2004 album 'Black Tape'. Included are the politically charged songs 'No Revolution' and 'Deliver Us', with a pun of the Lord's Prayer "Give us this day our daily dead..." Also the shout along tunes 'Mother's Cry' and 'Grace' sound loud and abrasive, and slowly win the crowd over. The Explosion are a pleasure to experience live, they don't give a shit whether anyone likes them or not, but put their all into everyone song just for the Hell of it.
Finally the time comes and AFI appear on stage to thunderous applause and deafening screams. They begin with 'Prelude 12/21' before kicking into 'Girl's Not Grey', the latter driving the audience even more wild as they surge forward to get nearer the front. The band are all clad in white, maybe to set themselves apart from their fans, or perhaps to escape from the 'goth' tag that's followed them round all these years, one thing's for sure it reflects their God-like status in this city tonight.
It's strange to think that most of tonight's audience were still in nappies when AFI formed, but what they lack in age they certainly make up for in enthusiam, with every word Davey Havok sings echoed by the entire crowd. Classic 'Days Of The Phoenix' whips up a frenzy, with the band feeding off the energy of their fans and leaping around the stage. The setlist has something for everyone, largely revolving around older songs from albums 'The Art Of Drowning' and 'Sing The Sorrow', but also a handful of tracks from 'Decemberunderground' make an appearance. New single 'Love Like Winter' feels much meatier live and less 80's pop, while 'Death Of Seasons' creates a wall of noise and the feeling that the floor could give way at any time. The song everyone's been waiting for, 'God Called In Sick Today', finds Havok climbing into the audience. The scramble to touch him is insane as the space taken up by the crowd halves in matter of seconds, with no-one quite believing what they're seeing.
The encore is a one track affair, 'Miss Murder' is blasted out with as much strength and fury as the songs just gone, and everyone jumps to what has become an anthem of the year. The exhausted band take a bow before leaving the stage and the choas they've caused behind them. Seeing this band live creates a bizarre feeling, they are mysterious beings that we shouldn't be allowed to see nevermind be in the same room as, yet they are humble and grateful for the turn out. Davey rarely speaks to the audience but when he does it's to say thank you and to show their appreciation. AFI may be rockstars now but they haven't forgotten where they started out and who helped them get there, they still have the passion and energy they've always had and show absolutely no signs of slowing down. Let's hope we don't have to wait as long for them to tour our shores again.
