So, with all of the set lists we’ve seen over that past few months, I’d like to see what each of you deem your “dream set list” with AFI. I’ll start. Remember, you’re writing this from Opening to Close and you have a max of 17 songs to list.
Strength Through Wounding (Black Sails)
Torch Song (Crash Love)
Third Season (Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes)
The Despair Factor (Art of Drowning)
Dancing Through Sunday (Sing the Sorrow)
3 1/2 (A Fire Inside EP)
This Time Imperfect (Sing the Sorrow)
Catch a Hot One (Art of Drowning)
Aurelia (Blood Album)
Rabbits are Roadkill on Rt 37 (Decemberunderground)
Synesthesia (Sing the Sorrow)
I Hope You Suffer (Burials) (mainly because of the guarantee of Davey entering the crowd)
Winter’s Tale (DOTP EP)
Ether
The Last Kiss
God Called in Sick Today
Totalimmortal (again, because Davey enters the crowd)
Holy crap that was hard to do… there are so many songs it’s really hard to choose.
I KNEW someone would post a topic like this eventually.
I did one on the old boards back in like 2006 and I remember a lot of people crowned it as “the mother of all setlists” and I guess I had to agree cause it really was badass lol. I can’t remember all I had on it but I do remember I had them doing two encores and playing both Strength Through Wounding and Keeping Out Of Direct Sunlight. But there really were no rules and we could have as many songs as we wanted. I think I had them playing like 32 songs or something. Limiting it to only 17 is going to be tough lol. But I’ll try…
Miseria Cantare
Exsanguination
Of Greetings And Goodbyes
Fall Children
6 To 8
Narrative Of Soul Against Soul
The Despair Factor
Now The World
This Celluloid Dream
A Winter’s Tale
This Time Imperfect
A Story At Three
Death Of Seasons
Wester
…But Home Is Nowhere
Encore:
Reivers Music
God Called In Sick Today
Ya they’re all from the years I was rabid for this band (still am though tbh). There are soooo many others I could add to this list - Synesthesia, The Boy Who Destroyed The World, Who Knew?, Midnight Sun, Malleus, The Last Kiss, At A Glance, Morningstar, Bleed Black, The Great Disappointment, The Leaving Song, in addition to everything they usually play live from that time. But I mean to be fair, I feel like Strength Through Wounding/Miseria Cantare, Totalimmortal (even though I axed it for Reivers Music), and God Called In Sick Today are obligatory because for me personally it just wouldn’t be an AFI show without them. Therefore I should be allowed to pick at least 20 songs.
Damnit I love this band.
[EDIT]
So after looking at this I feel like Now The World should be the encore and Reivers Music should go somewhere else(?) or maybe swap it back for Totalimmortal. Lol. Just too many damn good songs that sound fantastic live (if the grainy old videos from '02-'03 are anything to judge by) to choose from. Also, in retrospect I feel kind of mean for making Davey perform both Death Of Seasons and …But Home Is Nowhere almost back to back. Ouch.
Oh, no. Don’t ask me this! It depends on my mood. Ugh, I shall return with a setlist. It will probably be shit to others, though; I tend to like the songs that everyone hates, which is unfortunate.
Well, let me prelude by saying I have always wanted AFI to play on Mischief (Devil’s) Night in Salem, MA in the amazing Common area on an outdoor stage with the glorious fall evening around them.
And that’s what this setlist is for.
Setting: Salem, MA Common
Date: October 30th whenever
Setlist:
1.Strength Through Wounding
2. Torch Song
3. Dumb Kids
4. Perfect Fit
5. Melleus Maleficarum
6. Death of Seasons
7. Kiss and Control
8. End Transmission
9. 100 Words
10. Rewind
11. The Leaving Song
12. Pink Eyes
13. Clove Smoke Catharsis
14. …But Home is Nowhere
15. This Time Imperfect
16. The Leaving Song (Pt. II)
17. Fall Children
I would have put their “Halloween” cover on here, but I figured I would stick to originals, otherwise I would have also had “Don’t Change” on here. Sigh. These were my first impulse, what I would love to hear picks. Honestly, I love everything they play, so…
Yeah, the first time I saw them back in '01… I don’t remember what they started with. However when I saw them in '03, I know they started with Miseria.
I wouldn’t mind them starting with Sinking Night… have they ever started with or played Sinking Night (submitting this before I search for it on YouTube)?
I have no idea. Sinking Night would be amazing. I just love hearing Strength Through Wounding first. Probably because it was one of the first songs I ever heard by them.
I think it’s impossible to truly pick a “dream” set list because there are just so, so many amazing songs that I wish I could hear live. But the ones I listed here are definitely some of my favorites.
I love Miseria Cantare, it’s so freaking intense, even just listening to it on the album. Especially right around the part where Davey sings “as we aaallll form ONE DAAAARK FLAAAAAAME…AS WEEEEEEEE AAAAAAAAAAALLLLL…” until the end of the song haha. The videos I’ve seen of it performed live just blow my mind, especially when Davey’s screaming over the chants. Gives me goosebumps like crazy. I try not to be bitter about the fact I will never witness that in the flesh. I love Strength Through Wounding too, makes me think of some sort of seance/voodoo/occult ritual. It’s difficult to pick a favorite.
Well, some would argue that Black Sails was their darkest album… and I do agree with this, but it’s not when they fell into their darkest album. “Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes” has that “darkness entry” to it. However, “Through Our Bleeding, We Are One!” is just so iconic with AFI.
For example: At the Starland show last Sunday, the crowd was chanting it before AFI even came out. So naturally the crowd became very excited when they opened with it.
It’s tough for me to decide which exactly is their darkest, because I feel like there are certain different dark themes that run through each album and in a way each can’t really be compared to the other. Shut Your Mouth and Black Sails are more angry while Drowning and Sing the Sorrow deal much more with sadness and despair. But in all of them is this sort of…undercurrent of darkness, so to speak, it really comes out in some songs more obviously than others courtesy of Davey’s lyrics.
One thing I always really, really loved about this band is how the instrumentals fit the concepts of the songs and the lyrics so well. For example, in Sing the Sorrow, especially in slower tracks like Silver and Cold and This Time Imperfect, the bass just sounds so moody and the cleans are so warm and sad. There are so many little nuances in STS like that which sort of edge that album a little bit higher than the others for me. It’s so brilliant and perfect in my opinion.
Darkest? They’re all pretty damn dark. I also think that my own personal “reading” of them has colored them for me, so I can’t be objective about them. Like, for instance, when “Crash Love” came out, I was not in a good place. Even though I do think lyrically and sonically it’s a lighter album, when I listen to it, I am brought back to my own darkness in that era. But for me, STS definitely is the most melancholic/moody. Though, Burials is such a bleak record. I love it, but it’s so bleak. And there’s something very dark and almost unsettling about The Blood album. I think even more than lyrically this time the music itself is invoking that feeling in me.
I should clarify… I meant their FIRST dark album. IMO Shut Your Mouth definitely stepped into the darkness without a doubt from ‘Very Proud of Ya’ and then Black Sails was like falling down the rabbit hole.
Actually, to date… IMO “Burials” may be their darkest. Through Davey’s lyrics and through AFI musically… it’s such a ‘raw darkness’.
Yeah I totally agree with you here. I love how in Shut Your Mouth you can sort of feel the darkness creeping in, but then on Black Sails they just hold nothing back. Salt For Your Wounds is my favorite song on Shut Your Mouth. It never gets old. Also the best song lyrically on that album in my opinion. I love how Davey just spits out those words like they’re venom. Definitely a harbinger for what would come next.
Holy crap… had to immediately find this song on YouTube and listen. Yes, I definitely agree with you. I would have to say this is one of if not my favorite track on Shut Your Mouth as well. Third Season MIGHT be my favorite though. Third Season because the tone of Davey’s voice… it striked the same strings as “till the darkness comes AGAIN…” via Strength Through Wounding.
I love Third Season too. And Triple Zero. I’m pretty sure Third Season was the very first AFI song I heard. But it’s so long ago I really can’t remember. But I do remember seeing the fat kid and the ice cream truck coming around the corner in the video, and thinking “wtf is this” but loving the “Woooooaaaahhh…HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY!” in the chorus.
They always had great videos. But the one for Silver and Cold will above and beyond always be my favorite. That video just…ugh, right in the feels. It’s the waterworks with me every time.
