A Fire Inside (AFI)
Roseland Ballroom, New York, NY
Thursday, May 8, 2003

It seems like these days there’s more talk about what Davey Havok’s wearing than what AFI sounds like. Though Davey did come out wearing the usual pleather attire there was no question why Roseland was sold-out this fine evening. It was to hear the musical stylings of A Fire Inside. I was expecting to see more of the usual happenings from the nearby mall but was surprised to see a decent amount of hardcore kids.

Opening with “Miseria Cantare – The Beginning” Davey proceeded to take a dive over the barricade and into the arms of his peoples. I thought that was a pretty dope move to pull for a band that big and in a venue of that size. They dispense with the radio single “Girls Not Grey” by the 3rd song and continue to blast through there set with more sincerity than I’ve seen any band transmit in a long ass time. They played at least 4 songs from “Black Sails…” which made me happy because it’s my fave AFI record. His voice was incredibly on point and the band exerted an energy that took them from one side of the stage to the other with enormous ease throughout their entire show.

Now, I am by no means one those AFI freaks but this band impressed the shit out of me this night. The tightness and power of the music interacting with incredible amount of crowd interaction made for a very enjoyable evening in midtown, for once. And when Jerry Only (in full make-up) and Bill from “Bill & Ted’s…” are both at the same show it can’t be all that bad…can it?

-domincanedge