Girl at the Rock Shows

I woke up in Iowa on Sunday. By noon, I was back in Minneapolis. By 1 PM, I was officially saying goodbye to my coworker, who tragically passed away a couple of weeks ago in a beautiful celebration of life event. By 8 PM, I was ready to just completely crash out for the night, but knew that my heart was a bit restless. I already missed my parents a little bit, and I definitely missed my co-worker. I was all over the place and knew that if I went home and slept, it would be a night of tossing and turning, leading to a morning of feeling miserable and depressed, so instead of going home, I headed out to a show. A show to quench my thirst to get back to my normal life after spending my weekend in my hometown, and a show to soothe my restless and slightly confused soul. Per usual, the concert Gods had the perfect one in store for me at First Avenue in downtown Minneapolis.

Montreal-based trio Afternoon Bike Ride was the only opening act for Sunday night’s show and, honestly, they were more than enough to set the stage for the rest of the night. I’ll be the first to admit that, at first, their super dreamy, almost ambient-leaning sound wasn’t doing it for me. It was a bit calmer than what I was in the mood for and a bit more depressive than what I thought my heart could feel, given the goodbye that I had just said a few hours earlier. The first two songs skated by me, and I tried my best to latch onto the electronic beat lingering in the background and the overall intriguing composition of their songs, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t get hooked. That’s when vocalist Lia Kurihara took a moment to introduce a song from their new album ‘Running With Scissors.’ I instantly snickered to myself, as that is the title of one of my favorite Weird Al albums, and this was about as far away from Weird Al as you could get, but then she went on to explain the meaning behind that phrase.

It was a beautiful moment of supported vulnerability. She talked about how her father was fighting with dementia, and she became his caretaker before he tragically lost the fight. She mentioned how the whole situation felt like “Running With Scissors.” You had to recklessly make split-second decisions without having all of the knowledge that you may want to have before making said decisions. That’s when the sound of this band clicked. The super sudden endings and the sharp pokes of angst that were scattered among this beautiful soundscape of peaceful calm finally made sense, and by the end of Afternoon Bike Ride’s opening set, I felt a sense of peace and calm in my heart and soul that, deep down, I had come to terms with not being able to feel on Sunday. Sure, the music of this group is still a bit more low-key than what I tend to go for, but this is absolutely an act worth seeing, if only for that wholly calming kind of catharsis.

Is American Football one of the original Midwest emo bands? I guess that’s up for debate, but if you ask me, they are one of the most influential. Their debut 1999 album, ‘American Football’ (although all of their albums, including the one that came out earlier this year, are just titled ‘American Football’), seemed to be a spark that set off a whole movement of this sub-genre. What makes Midwest emo different than standard emo? It’s basically sad dad music. Okay, I know that’s not 100% accurate, but I feel like Midwest emo has a bit more of a down-to-earth feel to it than the often theatrical emo style. It’s slow and steady, with instrumentation that sometimes falls to the wayside when compared to the all-too-real lyrics. Keep in mind, these are just my thoughts on what Midwest emo is. Like every other genre and subgenre out there, I’m sure there’s a better, more scientific way to describe it, but this is what you’re getting from me because, in the end, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is how, like Afternoon Bike Ride, American Football gave me a space to feel emotions that I had been building up throughout the day and a place to get completely lost in my own world and have my own thoughts and feelings without any judgment.

American Football kicked their set off with “Man Overboard” and then continued into a seamless flow of ten other songs before a four-song encore. The focus was definitely on the newest album, but I loved that the band played through at least two songs from each of their albums. This gave you not only a look at every era of this monumental band, but it gave every era of fan a chance to shine. I’ll be the first to admit that, although I understand the importance of this band and have definitely spent my fair share of time with their music, it’s been more in passing than anything else. I couldn’t sing along to every word like many people in the audience could, but that kind of made this set even more special. I was somehow feeling the same feeling just watching everyone else get lost in the band’s world that I do when I myself am getting lost in a band’s live show. Maybe it’s the relatable lyrics. Maybe it’s the soft and sweet but uber-powerful instrumentation that this band boasts. Maybe it was just my current mental state, or maybe it was all in my head. Whatever the case may be, I found myself lost and loved in American Football’s world, and when the night finally came to an end, it was a world that was super hard to leave.

Sunday could have been a super rough day in my life. There were too many goodbyes. Some were just goodbyes for now; one was a goodbye forever. I could have just curled up in a ball at home and slept through the night in hopes that the sleep would make all of my jumbled and sad thoughts go away, but that never works. What does work is the power of live music. That’s what I needed, and that’s what I got, and then some.

Line Up:

Afternoon Bike Ride

American Football

Venue: First Avenue

Smell-O-Meter: Nothing Notable

Average Age of the Crowd: 44

Crowd Surfers- 0

Stage Divers- 0

Dance-ability- 1 out of 10

Amount of Beer Spilled On Me While Walking Around- $0

Broken Bones- None

Spotted Flying Through The Air- Nothing

Fights- None

Pukers- 0

Passed Out People- 0

How Many Times I’ve Seen These Bands Before (or at least how many times I can remember)-

Afternoon Bike Ride – 0

American Football – 1

Show on Deck – Ben Sidran

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