The first time I saw (or heard) AFI was on April Fool's Day 1997 and I HATED them. Being "Mr. Serious Hardcore Guy" at the time, their goofy skatepunk totally missed the mark with me. Being 23 then, I wrote them off as slop for 14-year-olds, entry level garbage. They landed on my radar two years later when I saw an ad for Black Sails in the Sunset and thought, "this is no different!"
The offending ad
Fast forward to the Summer of 2000. The girl I was dating at the time and I were given free warped tour passes and when we looked at the board during a lull in the line up, I said "Hey, let's go make fun of AFI!" we walked over to the stage they were slated to play on, and they came out and blew us away. I CANNOT express how good they were. I became an instant fan. They mentioned that they weren't even supposed to play that day but asked to be added as they hadn't played buffalo is so long and had gotten many letters requesting that they do. I'm glad they did. At a merch table I got a free sampler cassette with some garbage Vandals song and the enticing Sacrifice Theory for the upcoming record AFI record, The Art of Drowning. I was smitten; it immediately changed how I wrote songs for my band at the time, The Control. I soon owned Black sails in the Sunset, All Hallow's and Art of Drowning. This stuff was a far cry from the band I saw in 1997 and right in my wheelhouse: Spooky Melodic Hardcore.
The girl I was dating on that fateful Warped Tour Day eventually broke up (after seeing AFI another time in 2001) and my first wife and I started dating. Thankfully, she was already into AFI and together we went to the BEST AFI gig I ever saw January 1/29/03. Sing the Sorrow leaked a few weeks later and at first, we were taken aback, she even joked "Did they lose a bet or something?" Within a week I couldn't stop listening to it. We saw them 3 more times in 2003.
AFI at the Opera House 1/29/03 (shot with a potato)
AFI at the Opera House 1/29/03 (shot with a potato)
AFI continued to be an influence on me, my next band Dead Hearts- every record had to have the huge intro ala AFI. When we were in the studio recording our most popular record Bitter Verses, we stopped at a record store on the way to the studio (6/6/06) to grab the CD for DECEMBERUNDERGROUND and Derek, Tom and I were like "uhhhhhh?" it was just OK at best. I like songs but over all that record falls so flat for me. I saw them in Toronto two weeks later and everything was white- their clothes, the back drops, the fucking tree they had on stage. WHITE. I was bummed. They were good but some of the songs weren't. Crash love followed up December... and I stood outside their show handing out flyers because aside from two songs, the record REALLY sucked and the band looked like Maroon Five. Burials followed- I like that one mostly and I took my son to see AFI when he had just turned 3 (he starts middle school soon). I firmly like the Missing Man ep. But really, it's been slim pickings since 2003.
My son at his first gig- AFI 2018
The author at the 20th STS show 2023
I did have a BLAST at the 20th anniversary of Sing the Sorrow in LA 3 years ago and both other times I've seen them in 2022 and 2025. Each time they played a few classics I hadn't seen and are still a great live band, it's just not the same. I don't like the last two albums at all and although I respect them as artists wanting to continue to grow, the stuff they write now isn't what I look for them for. Plus, they were VERY GOOD at writing the songs the wrote from 1999-2003 and fairly mediocre at writing the kind of stuff that came after. They were so locked in, but now the freeway has so many exits, they never quite get to the destination. Last time I saw them, they did do Malleus Maleficarum, so perhaps all is forgiven. As a matter of fact, Black Sails in the Sunset turned 27 today!
Anyway, on to the list of every AFI song I've seen performed live:
Answer That and Stay Fashionable:
Half-Empty Bottle
Brownie Bottom Sundae
I Wanna Get a Mohawk (But Mom Won't Let Me Get One)
As I covered in this post last year, my old band played a stellar reunion when I was visiting back east last fall. I had no idea it was being filmed in this capacity, and it was only mentioned in passing that the audio was going to be recorded by Paul Mitro, who was doing the FOH sound. It turned out wonderful and MUCH better than the DVD that was released over a decade ago. Check it out:
On Saturday, July 3rd, 1982, I was halfway through spending the weekend at my grandparents, while my parents were attending a concert at Rich Stadium, just outside of Buffalo, NY. I was only 8, so I didn't really have awareness of exactly what they went to, but while watching the 6 o'clock news with my grandfather, they showed a clip of the concert, a few guys running around stage and a giant Frankenstein monster guy with them! I was already a fan of giant monster movies thanks to UHF television- Godzilla, War of the Gargantuan, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and the like and I was TOTALLY onboard with what I saw on the news. "That's the concert your parents are at!" My grandfather exclaimed, kind of shocked. That was my first introduction to Iron Maiden and my parents were never that cool again.
By the time I was 12, I was a full-on heavy metal maniac. Iron Maiden were my favorite band with Metallica quickly closing in by the time I was 13. A month after my 13th birthday, Maiden played Buffalo and a few of my friends and some classmates went; my envy was off the charts, even if I didn't really think Somewhere in Time was as good as Powerslave. In 1988, my uncle to pledged to take me to see them on the "Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour" and boy was I was excited! The tour was for an album I actually love- I rode my bike (during easter break if I recall) to the store in the spring to buy it on cassette and it essentially didn't leave my Walkman until ...And Justice for All came out in the fall. Now, I SWEAR he told me the show was at the Niagara Falls Convention Center and that he had bought tickets and it got cancelled. I remember my friends talking about the show being cancelled but looking at online information about the tour and cancelled dates, the only NY shows I see that are listed as cancelled are Utica and Binghampton. Perhaps it was booked and canned so fast that there's no online record of it? I may also be confusing this with a David Lee Roth concert that was there in '88 that I desperately wanted to attend, but that show happened for sure. Regardless, I wasn't interested in going to the Rochester shows in '91 or '92 (this is an ongoing theme with Rochester) and didn't finally see Iron Maiden until February 1996- a very bleak time for them and metal in general. The venue only has a capacity of 2,500 and it was nowhere near full. Plus, Blaze Bailey was singing. A very strange and non-epic gig.
Great tour, TERRIBLE video game.
In 1999, Bruce and Adrian returned to Maiden and a bunch of us crammed into a car and drove to Cleveland to witness the "Ed Hunter" tour and that was EVERYTHING we had hoped for. The set opened with the goddamned Churchill speech into Aces High and I've seen them 8 more times since.
Not that it's been all gravy since 1999, I left pretty disappointed in 2012 on the "Maiden England" tour because Bruce was constantly being a total buzzkill BITCHING about the height of the venue stage and I didn't think they played especially well. Also, and a further bummer, though I've seen them a total of 10 times I had tickets to two shows (2017 "Book of Souls" and the first leg of the "Legacy of the Beast" in 2019) that I couldn't attend because of events at the college I used to work at. When I caught the post covid leg of "Legacy" they opened with three fucking boat anchors from Senjutsu- not exactly the legacy I signed up for. Regardless, Maiden are an exceptional live band on a level that is only rivaled by Metallica.
This is the LIST of every song I've seen them perform at least once:
Building off last week's posts of "list of songs I've seen live by my favorite bands" I'm happy to provide another List for you to envy or laugh at. Today, we delve into the list of Motorhead songs I've been lucky enough to see live.
In December 1988, my uncle asked me if I wanted to go see Motorhead in my hometown at the Riviera Theatre. I only really liked the song "Mean Machine" at that point and foolishly declined. in the 90's I finally saw Motorhead when I was given a free ticket (one of many) that the promoter was trying to get out there to get people into a vastly undersold show. I was not prepared for how INSANELY loud their set was going to be and I think my bones are still shaking well over 25 years later. Seriously, at one point I had to leave the room (Don't worry, I did go back in), and I rarely didn't bring ear plugs to a gig after.
That show would be the only time I saw Motorhead headline. Every show after, they were opening for some bigger metal band. I think I was invited by friends to make the trek to Rochester in 2003 to see them headline at the Penny Arcade, but seeing that set list, I only missed "Brave New World" off of Hammered and a cover of the Sex Pistol's "God Save the Queen" so, even though I DO wish that I had seen them more than 4 times, I think ultimately I made out well. The last time I saw Motorhead was in 2102 and they were GREAT, blowing Slayer and Anthrax off the stage. I saw that long Serving Motorhead guitarist (until Lemmy's death in 2015) Phil Campbell passed away on this past Friday the 13th, a true Bummer. Orgasmatron is my favorite Motorhead record (though it's neck and neck with On Parole) and damn those riffs will never ring out properly again with he, Lemmy and Wurzel gone.
Building off of yesterday's post, I thought I'd once again pounce on well-traveled ground in the blog: Black Sabbath. Not only Sabbath, but also what I've seen from the solo bands of two of their front men- Ozzy and Dio. I'm leaving off the time I saw Deep Purple- even though I like Born Again (and Purple for that matter), I feel like it is a VERY sperate thing and you know what I mean. Plus, Gillan kind of toed the line before the 9 year drop off before Dio's return with Dehumanizer.
Now, I saw Ozzy's band in the late 80's first. Geezer was on bass and they pumped out a few Sabbath songs, including Sweet Leaf, which I didn't expect but it wasn't THE Black Sabbath. Also, when I previously wrote about these sets, I mistakenly credited Mike Bordin with playing one of the two Sabbath gigs, miraculously and by all accounts and internet provenance it was Bill Ward BOTH times behind the kit. I see I even posted the sets in that one. But let's stick to the program here- THE LIST:
Not to brag, but this is my complete double test press of We Sold Our Soul for Rock N Roll- a very important release for me
So, something I've done for a while is keep a list of live songs I've seen from some of my favorite bands. I never really did this for the hardcore bands I've seen, as the vast majority of them, I saw while they were playing their material what is now (or even, then) considered classic. Also, those bands were so accessible, that they just reside in a different place in my mind than the subject of this post (another one) about Danzig.
I first saw Danzig in the 1990's (as documented elsewhere in this blog) for a current total of 13 times, which does not include the two great "Original" Misfits gigs or the (EXCELLENT) Samhain reunion in 1999. There was a (technically) 12-year dry spell from November 2010 (the 11th 'Zig gig) until May 2022(#12), though in that time, I saw those aforementioned Misfits gigs. Also, I had Tickets to a show in Sept 2017 at the Warfield, but it got moved due to illness to the same night as another gig (L7) and, as I had only seen L7 in 1992 once, I chose that. I should also mention that the L7 gig was over early and I hopped in my car and sped over to the Warfield, only to spent 25-30 minutes looking for parking and another 15 or so walking to the venue, just to arrive as the doors opened and the crowd was streaming out, thus missing my only chance to see the song Godless live. Bummer summer- Though excellent gigs in 2022 and 2025 with a few songs I'd never seen more than made up for that. I've included the time's Danzig did Samhain or Misfits songs
.jpg)