Enter the Diamond Ballroom, Oklahoma City set list featuring an oldie but an amazie… “Salt For Your Wounds”, not played since '97 according to SetList.fm. Featuring a 15-song set list including 37mm (being played for the second time live, ever).
Strength Through Wounding (Black Sails in the Sunset)
Girl’s Not Grey (Sing the Sorrow)
Still a Stranger (Blood Album)
Greater than 84 (Burials)
Sal For Your Wounds (Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes)
Bleed Black (Sing the Sorrow)
37mm (Decemberunderground)
Days of the Phoenix (Art of Drowning)
Snow Cats (Blood Album)
Paper Airplanes (Sing the Sorrow)
Love Like Winter (Decemberunderground)
I Hope You Suffer (Burials)
Silver and Cold (Sing the Sorrow)
Morningstar (Art of Drowning)
Miss Murder (Decemberunderground)
1 x songs played - Black Sails in the Sunset
4 x songs played - Sing the Sorrow
2 x songs played - Blood Album
2 x songs played - Burials
1 x songs played - Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes
3 x songs played - Decemberunderground
2 x songs played - Art of Drowning
No, it’s definitely a unique phenomenon of The Blood Tour.
That isn’t to say that they’ve never dug deep into their back catalog before, but it was a fairly rare event. They were the sort of band that stuck mostly to their new material, supported by songs from the preceding couple of albums, with older staples and the occasional obscure (or very old) song thrown in.
And there are a lot of bands like that. Especially in the case of AFI, I get it. They’re obviously more excited about new material that they find current and not done to death. There’s always going to be a gulf between what an artist’s perspective is and what their audience’s perspective is. We love a mix of all their material, but the band wants to stay fresh.
It’s encouraging, however, that they’ve made this a trend on this tour. Credit to Jade for designing these setlists. Hunter and Adam have also spoken about how drawing from older, rarer material (either never- or seldom-played songs) is exciting in its own way. Davey seems less enthusiastic about it, but even he admitted that performing songs like Paper Airplanes for the first time has been an interesting experience, as he doesn’t typically listen to their older material.
Regarding Davey, yeah, I saw an interview with him where he states that he’s always more excited to play new material. Aurelia was his current favorite to perform.
I wonder what it is about Aurelia that makes him talk about it so much.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s not a good song. It’s not really one of my favorites on TBA, but it’s solid. But both Davey and Adam have singled it out in interviews, and there must be something that I’m missing about it. Again, there are bound to be differences in opinion between artists and audiences when evaluating the quality of their work. Sometimes a band may cite a certain track as a favorite that really isn’t a fan favorite, and likewise, fans may love a song that the band doesn’t think is very good.
For me, Aurelia is very sparse in terms of lyrics, and I think that’s one reason it doesn’t click with me as strongly as others. I’m very big on lyrics in general, and I don’t really find much to relate to in this song. It’s also a bit slower and softer than I prefer.
See, I love “Aurelia,” but maybe I read too much into the lyrics. There’s something about the Spartan nature of that song lyrically mixed with the moody instrumentals that really hits me.
But I know I’m def in the minority. The few friends I have who actually like AFI don’t really love that song.
