LIVE REVIEW: We Are Not The Kids We Used To Be – Alexisonfire Farewell Tour @ Sound Academy

I remember the day I bought Watch Out!, I think I was probably 16. I picked it up at a mall I had never been to, and while walking down the street in my neighborhood a few hours later, someone yelled “fucking Avril” at me out their car window as they drove by. In retrospect, that’s pretty funny, but at the time I was pissed cause as far as I was concerned the Dickies pants I was wearing half way down my ass was a look that I came up with.

Sometimes you get sick of watching a band play live, but I’ve probably seen Alexisonfire 8 or 9 times over the years. They were just one of my go-to bands in high school – a fixture of the Toronto scene. I think growing up I just assumed that being able to so closely watch a band come into their own was a normal thing people did – I had that experience with a few bands that came out of this city – but it’s not.

Last night’s show at the Sound Academy was pretty wild.  It was the third of four sold out Toronto dates on their Farewell Tour, and from up above, looking over top of that crowd, it was exactly like I remember it. I haven’t been to a show like that in ages; everyone was so willing to go balls-out for this band, you could feel it in the room, people came ready to just fucking give it one last time.

I actually saw security fight to ravage some guy over the barricade and absolutely fail because he was hanging on for dear life. I love that. That’s what this shit is about.

Last night, everyone showed up to go hard and see this band off, and it was great. It’s really nice to see that people are still willing to pay good money to be at a rock a show. “This has been the best fucking one,” Wade announced before leaving the stage. Whether or not that was true, it was a reminder that we are all necessary to the experience, and that the appeal and the electricity that hooked you as a teenager in the first place, that’s dependent on every single person in the room.

Yesterday I was thinking that as a kid you have this impression that guys who play in bands are untouchable people. You buy the music cause it’s louder than your thoughts are, you go to the shows cause you get close enough to react to their energy, you pay 50 dollars for a cheaply made hoodie because you’re proud to wear the band’s name across your chest, and you get on board for the ride cause that’s more than enough to get you through. Then one day you’re there again. Nostalgic as hell but thankful for the memories, and naturally you come to realize that they’ve always been regular people, they just had a really great run.