Everytime I Die

Picture it, a room full of spiky haired, baggy t-shirted, chain to wallet wearing emo boys and Sportsgirl toting emo girls and me; a 25 year old post-grunger wondering what the hell she was doing here. Well, the answer to that was I got a free ticket and was there to take photos. I wasn’t there to enjoy myself, I was there to judge and pretend I was superior to the emo kids as only those of us who can actually remember Nirvana when they first came out, can.

From what I can gather emo is to the kids today what grunge was to us in the 1990’s. So I can’t really discuss how any emo band reflects my own teen angst because basically that was quenched and accounted for by years of wearing baggy t-shirts and not washing my hair during the 1990’s. So rather than making broad generalisations about emo as a whole and waxing lyrical about the whole scene as a fruitful place of discourse, I am going to have to take Every Time I Die on their merits. Damn I hope I can.

Local band Parkway Drive opened proceedings with a tight set, which, judging by the swell of appreciative head banging rippling throughout the audience was well received.

Every Time I Die, bounded on to the stage, owning it and the crowd within seconds and ripped through about ten tunes. I would love to tell you what they were but sadly I hae next to no idea. They were obvious crowd favourites however, as the crowd-reverb meter was definitely set to high. Musically, ETID delivered an extremely tight set and had seemingly boundless energy, strutting along the stage like a pack of angry peacocks, which they crowd lapped up with pleasure. Unlike other international acts, there was no false bravado evident in their performance or bullshit rock star attitude. ETID gave the distinct impression that they were just darn happy to be there. The crowd reciprocated and were undoubtedly enthused but respectful to the band, other fans and security. (I got it on good authority from the security guys that emo/metal gigs, despite their reputation are actually quite well behaved this one was no exception)

Despite my initial trepidation, ETID delivered a great show and catchy tunes; I even caught myself doing a little appreciative head banging myself.

Whilst I am not about to go and buy their entire back catalogue, I give kudos to any band that is willing to put themselves on the line and do a solid show. The audience certainly enjoyed it, and after I got over my own bullshit prejudices, so did I.

Share this review on Facebook