Gig review: Alien Ant Farm at Rock City

It was a packed out Rock City tonight, with Nocturnal Affair first up. Hailing from the US, these dark goth rockers cite Type O Negative, HIM, David Bowie, Gary Numan and Nine Inch Nails as influences. To that they add a grittier, dark metal sound, and were met with a decent reception. If you like your music heavy, ominous, gloomy but with plenty of melody, they might be for you.

As we weaved our way through an excited crowd, you could hear one or two ironic cries of "we want CKY", but members of eleventh hour replacements InMe didn’t. It was clearly, for them, a huge honour to be called upon – out of the blue – to go on tour with such a big name from the late 90s/early noughties. And they left nothing out on stage, with pedal firmly to the metal throughout their set. Their musicianship is excellent, and as performers they more than merited their place on the bill with a warm reception from the room. But, for me, the material wasn’t particularly compelling or, as I’m realising now, memorable. No t, no shade, just not our jam.

Giving a new track its maiden outing, InMe frontman Dave McPherson explained that he wrote it
about his newfound sobriety, explaining that he’s “18 months sobre” which rightly drew a ripple of
respect from the crowd. Although Dryden later announced that he’s “three years sober” so, you know, recovery top trumps…

Then the moment we were waiting for. To much whooping and general giddiness those nu-metal, post-grunge, punk-pop extra-terrestrial emmets scuttled onto the stage and tore into Courage from their 2001 breakthrough album ANThology. That set the scene for much of the night, with the majority of their material coming from their second, and generally best-regarded album.

Dryden Mitchell led energetically from the front on vocals, with Terry Corso on guitar, Tim Peugh on bass, and Mike Cosgrove on drums. AAF are a tight, thundering unit of a band who have retained a loyal and adoring following nearly 30 years on from when they first got together in Riverside, California.

Before we go any further, special mention for their casually dressed back-up vocalist, who looked like he was having a whale of a time.

Alerted by an Apple Watch that our environment had exceeded 100dB, I could only respect the vaulting optimism of playing a tambourine to Alien Ant Farm at Rock City.

Movies was a real crowd pleaser, which isn’t surprising given that it was their debut single from their most loved album. Over two decades since it’s release, time has done nothing to dim their passion or energy for performance. It was cockle-warming to see some crowd-surfing too, which proved that time has done nothing to dim the affections or commitment of their fans.

While the bulk of the set was drawn from ANThology, including Flesh and Bone and Sticks and
Stones, they did pepper this with tracks from their truANT, Up In the Attic and ~mAntras~ albums,
the last being their latest. One of us was more familiar with their back catalogue than the other, but
even for the AAF newbie, the hooky choruses, catchy riffs and juggernaut power of their crunching
sound made for a good night.

Two songs into the encore, whilst playing Goodbye and encouraging us all to wave them a fond
farewell, we were thinking "surely not, they can’t not play it!" Would they deny us their career-defining cover of MJ’s Smooth Criminal? Would they heck. Camera phones came out, cheers went up, and we ended on a much anticipated high, rocking out to a tale inspired by a serial killer with a chorus inspired by a CPR dummy.

A noughties nostalgia-fest or a celebration of reinvention and staying power? Tonight’s adoring
crowd didn’t care, and that’s really all that counts.

Alien Ant Farm performed at Rock City on 17th November 2024, with support from InMe and Nocturnal Affair.

@alienantfarmofficial