Illinois' American Football deliver an autumn fanfare with candour, as they headline Nottingham’s Rock City for their LP1 25th anniversary tour. The Mic’s Ross Williams reports on the show and why this roster of luminaries is playing all the right cards.
Arriving to Rock City, the crowd had already established itself in every nook and cranny of the venue for the much-anticipated support act Hello Mary. The all-female, all American three-piece captivated an attentive audience with contrasting textures of rich fuzz and warm overdrive. Tracks like ‘Sink In’ exemplify this, as Mikaela Oppenheimer’s bass riffs distinctly glide up the fretboard and Helena Straight’s guitar sporadically shifts in personality, akin to Smashing Pumpkin’s Siamese Dream LP. All three periodically deliver vocals into filtered microphones to great effect. Their newest singles ‘three’ and '0%’ were personal favourites of mine; Their new album Emita Ox has also just released on Frenchkiss Records so give it a listen!
American Football started as a clandestine project from a quartet of college kids. Their graduation and anastomosing lives meant the band split prematurely-far before bored teenagers exchanging pirated songs on Napster made them a household name for alternative music fans. These days, their post reunion line-up is slightly larger, boasting additional vocals, guitar, and xylophonic splendour.
Mike Kinsella’s Melodies and Steve Holmes’ counterpoint engage, constantly dilating through the pastiche of mid-west ennui. The dialogue of twinkling guitar lines struck me with its prudent and understated style. Unlike the maudlin cries of their third-wave emo predecessors, American Football’s ecstatic arrangements don’t fling themselves off the obvious, prosaic drops and breakdowns listeners of the genre have grown accustomed to. Their compositions instead meander through themes of spurned love and passing time in their own idiosyncratic, boundless way.
Their set began with Five Silent Miles, a deeper cut from their first EP, and continued to by playing LP1 through in its entirety. Drummer Steve Lamos donning his trumpet for Summer Ends, instantly transported me back to my days of yore, messing around on forgotten train tracks and having nothing better to do than kick up dust and make noise in quiet places. The band’s sound perfectly captures the liminal spaces that haunt small towns and adolescence. Passing feelings brushing through seemingly static and decaying surroundings. Its music for a turning season; something familiar in times of anxious change. Tracks like Honestly reminded me how many of my favourite bands don American Football’s influence like a badge of honour. Hearing droves singing along to Kinsella’s lovingly clumsy and disjunct lyrics of Never Meant showed how their subtle brand of Midwest Emo is so established and loved, multiple decades and thousands of miles from where the band started. All endings hold new beginnings blah blah...<thank you to the internet for plucking this band from relative obscurity!>
The hefty 5 song encore showed off their impressive tracks from their 2016 and 2019 self-titled albums. My Instincts Are the Enemy and Uncomfortably Numb prove the band’s determination to scratch a nostalgic itch, whilst adding meaningful additions to their discography. Listening to the glowing tails of reverb and delay, plus the beautifully dynamic production of these modern records feels like one is listening under an expanding sky on some greener grass. American Football have held their place in my psyche for years, it was a joy to see them finally and I eagerly anticipate their return across the pond!
Written and edited by
Ross Williams
Photos courtesy of American Football via Facebook
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