Erica & Lacey relive our emo days.

AFI!! All of the pictures on this blog post are of AFI since I really didn't care for the two opening bands.

Back in 2004, my best friend, Lacey, and I bonded over emo music and dreamed of dating guys who wore eyeliner. We weren't exactly part of the emo crowd--we weren't edgy enough--but, oh, how we loved to watch from the sidelines. I've gotten less and less edgy in my old age but Lacey is still hip enough to keep up with the music scene. So when she found out that the band, AFI (one of our favorites a decade ago), was coming to town and invited me to go with her, I said, "Sure, why not?" As soon as we got to the concert venue, I discovered exactly why not... I am old. LOL Very, very, old.

AFI at 10:10...can you believe that?!? Who even stays up that late anymore? Apparently the young'ens do. 

At age 32, Lacey & I were among the oldest in attendance. Do you remember hearing those "you know you're old if..." jokes as a kid? Well, they are actually pretty true. Here are a few you can make fun of us for...
     * Our first concern was that AFI wasn't starting their set until 10:10pm! That is entirely past my bedtime. And if they didn't start until that late, lord only knows what time we'll actually make it home! We were genuinely worried that we might fall asleep before we could watch the band we came to see. It wasn't looking good as I started yawning around 9:30pm. The band must have somehow sensed our concern and actually came on stage a little early (at 10pm). Thank goodness!
     * The style of dress from the early 1990s is making a comeback and we actually remembered dressing that way as a kid. Remember wearing long t-shirts with short denim shorts and choker necklaces? That's a thing again. We realized that instead of having "flashback 1980s day" for school fundraisers, the young'ens nowadays are having "flashback 1990s-dress day".
     * We actually found ourselves complaining about the noise (do the speakers need to be that loud?...we couldn't hear each other talk.), strobe lights (too blinding) and temperature (too hot, too many sweaty bodies, yuck) of the concert venue.
     * But we did fully appreciate the cleanness of the public restrooms.

How did Davey Havok manage wear a jacket in this stuffy room?

Besides those few chuckle worthy complaints, the concert overall was rather enjoyable. I can say that I still like angsty rock music after I initially fell in love with it almost fifteen years ago. The first opening band was Citizen (from Ohio... that's how they kept referring to themselves as, "We're Citizen from Ohio"... there must be a lot of bands named Citizen from various states). After every song, they would stop and thank us for listening to them. It was a nice gesture at first, but then it felt overly appreciative and almost desperate. Lacey suggested that maybe they get booed off stage a lot so they were very happy that we were still a captive audience. Another thing that happens when you get old... you turn into a cynical curmudgeon. Hahaha!

During the set change, the concert venue played a compilation of Outkast's greatest hits over the loudspeaker. We enjoyed the throwback tracks but wondered if anyone else in attendance ever even heard of Outkast. I seemed to be the only one singing along to Hey Ya! 

Trying out our best "we're badass emo girl" faces. Please note our back shirts and eye make up. We are so hard core!

The second band to play was Circa Survive. They were a crowd favorite but Lacey & I had never heard of them *insert "you know you're old if joke" here* I thought the lead singer's use of auto-tune made him sound like Ozzy Osbourne sucking from a helium balloon. It was during their performance that we started to complain about the lighting. The strobe lights were very impressive but maybe overly so. I turned to Lacey and told her I couldn't look at that stage because the lights were blinding me. Maybe I needed to bring in my sunglasses.

                     I would have gotten pictures of the entire band but only the lead singer was up close and personal. 

Lastly, was AFI... the awesome emo rockers that we stayed up so late to see. They did not disappoint! At first we were worried that we wouldn't recognize their songs because they have released a lot of new music since we first listened to them. But, they played mostly their old songs from the Sing the Sorrow and December Underground albums (the ones that Lacey & I knew by heart). Besides playing our favorite songs, the best thing about their performance was that each member of the band stood on a riser so us short kids could view them, too. (^_^) Although I was tired and my legs ached from standing all night, I jumped up & down and scream-sung the songs along with the rest of the crowd. We left our old lady complaining behind and felt young again for an hour. I think that's the great thing about music; its something you can just immerse yourself in and forget about your worries for a while. But then my ears rang the entire way home. Ugh... old age. LOL

Last AFI picture.