Live Review: Alien Ant Farm - Epic, Norwich
15th November 2024
Support: The Fear, The Nocturnal Affair
Words & Photos: Tom Atkin
Continuing the recent nostalgia trip, tonight weare at Epic in Norwich for Alien Ant Farm.
There has been a bit of controversy regarding this tour. CKY were meant to be co-headlining but sadly this was changed last minute. With this news I wasn’t sure what the attendance was going to be, looking online, there was a lot of people commenting that they were going to refund their tickets. However, doors aren’t even open when I get to the venue, and the queue is all the way up the road. If people did refund their tickets, they were re bought by more people!
So first up tonight, we have The Nocturnal Affair. I am not exactly sure what genre I would slot these guys into. Going off the good ol’ google, they are listed as "Dark Rockers", I would say that is a fairly accurate description.
Considering that fact though, their performance is not all gloomy and mysterious; they are active, interact with the crowd and generally put on a great show. Their songs feel well put together, their performance is dialled in and as a group, they are enjoying themselves whilst performing, and I think this is a common thought amongst the crowd. They are getting everyone pumped and warmed up for the night ahead. With a decent set length, we get a nice mix of their songs, standouts include both 'Cross Me Out' and their absolutely amazing cover of 'What Is Love' by Haddaway. The former being their latest release, and a brilliant example of what you can expect to hear from them.
Next up, we have tonight’s stand in band. Whilst The Fear are on most of the rest of the tour, initially they were not pegged to be at the Norwich date, however, they stepped up to the mark!
Being a fairly new band, this is a pretty big deal for them, they released their debut single just last month titled 'White Noise' with Kellin Quinn from Sleeping With Sirens. Apparently though, they have an album recorded and coming out very soon!
Much like tonight’s opener, they have their shit together, providing their own take on the metal core genre, in an exceptional performance. They don’t feel like a band that only hit the ground a month ago. The only negative I can really give about the performance, is their stage presence doesn’t feel quite there yet. However, this is completely understandable given their age. Give them a chance to get a few tours under their belt and it will be a completely different story.
And finally, Alien Ant Farm take the stage. Straight away they grasp the audience’s attention, it seems that everyone here is not fussed about the lack of CKY and in fact were just purely excited that Alien Ant Farm were back on UK soil.
The start of the set they throw it back to their early days with songs from their second album 'Anthology', We get 'Courage', 'Wish' and 'Flesh and Bone'. Considering these were written in the late 90’s they still sound absolutely amazing. The band are back with pretty much all their original members now, with the exception of the bassist Tim Peugh. However, he's been in the ban for nearly ten years now, so you could say it is no surprise that they perform so well together now.
Dryden Mitchell’s vocals really are something, in my opinion he has a very unique tone and I wasn’t sure how well it would hold up in a live scenario. This turned out to not be all that much of a worry as his vocals are spot on.
The whole band seem to really just appreciate the fact that everyone came out tonight, they are interacting with the whole of the front row, they all seem completely in their element, and it is rubbing off on everyone.
All of their previous releases were touched on, we had songs from every era of Alien Ant Farm, 'What I feel Is Mine', 'Attitude' and 'These Days' all sound absolutely amazing. There was some technical difficulties during I think it was Attitude, however the crowd stepped up and sang it instead!
As expected 'Movies' was thrown in to the set, quite early on as well. Much to the happiness of the whole crowd, that iconic riff at the start will forever sound great no matter how old it is and how long it has been since we last heard it.
Any one that doubts whether or not Alien Ant Farm are still a fun band that can also be taken seriously with regards to their talent really should take the time out to see these guys live and be completely proven wrong.
After the classic “we are finished go home now” end of the show, the encore featured arguably their most loved songs. 'What I Feel is Mine' and 'Goodbye' but we still were missing that golden oldie that put them on the map back in 2001. 'Smooth Criminal' was left until last, because, well of course it was. It is their biggest song to date! As a concert closer it is a great choice, a nice little reminder of where they have come from. With the tracks throughout the night from this years album 'Mantras' we have a taster of where the band are headed.
Photo Credit: Tom Atkin
