Last Friday I went to the sold out Against Me! concert at the Starlite Room here in Edmonton. The opening bands for this show were Cheap Girls and Laura Stevenson. Sadly I missed Cheap Girls as I was stuck in the line up to get into the venue. By the time I got in they were done, from what I could hear while waiting, they sounded good.
I did get to see Laura Stevenson from Long Island, New York plays a folk/rock style of music. I had never heard of her before, but thought she and her band put on a good show.
Laura Stevenson at the Starlite Room.
Next up were headliners Gainesville, Florida band Against Me!. This was my first time seeing the band in concert, having just started listening to them in the past year after reading the Rolling Stone article about lead singer Laura Jane Grace (formerly Tom Gabel) coming out as transgender. To read this article, click here.
I picked up the new Against Me! album Transgender Dysphoria Blues when it came out. It's a great album which intrigued me enough to see them live. I had listened to some of their earlier albums before as well, but have to say the new album is my favorite.
Against Me! hit the stage rockin' to loud applause from the sold out audience opening with a new song "FuckMyLife666". This line-up of Against Me! included Atom Willard (RFTC, Social D) on drums, Inge Johansson (The (International) Noise Conspiracy) on bass and long time guitar player James Bowman and of course Laura Jane Grace on vocals and guitar. Laura's voice sounded great, lots of grit and attitude. And the rest of the band were tight as well. The whole band seemed to be on, and having a good time performing, although, early in the show, some guy got up on stage and tried to kiss Laura. That didn't go over well, with Laura saying "sorry dude, I don't wanna make out with you". Lucky for the stage invader he didn't get his ass kicked.
The band mixed up their set quite well doing songs from almost all there albums. I listened to their album "New Wave" which I don't care for at all. But, live the songs they did "Thrash Unreal" certainly sounded better live then on record. I don't know all their records that well, but I do know they did "I Was A Teenage Anarchist" from their album White Crosses. And of course they did about a half dozen from their latest release including the first song of the night as well as "True Trans Soul Rebel", "Black Me Out", "Unconditional Love" and the album title song. All and all this was a great show, better then I was expecting. The crowd ate it up, stage diving, singing along, pumping their fists in the air and just having a good time. Good times!!!
Against Me! at the Starlite Room.
T-shirt.
A couple of videos I found on YouTube from the show.
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