• Wed. Oct 9th, 2024

A Fire Inside Vegas

ByStephy Muzio

Dec 19, 2013 #AFI

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Jade, Hunter, and Adam walked onto the stage. Next followed Davey. The crowd of the House of Blues Las Vegas,who had been chanting for the past 10 or so minutes “through our bleeding we are one!”, went absolutely fucking nuts.

Jade broke into those first few notes of Leaving Song Pt. 2, the second track and one of the hit singles off of their 2003 album, Sing the Sorrow. For a band who has changed so much, yet stayed the same, they absolutely tore the roof of. What followed was even more amazing, as they continued into “Girl’s Not Grey” and then the first single off of their newest album Burials, “I Hope You Suffer”, where Davey did one of his famous jump into the crowd and sing amongst the audience moments.

AFI covered a wide variety of their music in the short hour and a half set they performed. I was pleasantly surprised that they played a good chunk off of their 2000 album Art of Drowning, including “Days of the Phoenix” and “Ever and A Day”. They even threw in “File 13” off of their 1996 album Very Proud of Ya!

Nothing was played off of their 2009 album CrashLove, but this album is one of the most disliked albums in their collection.

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Then something happened. I witnessed something that they had not done since the first time I saw them in 2006. The opening riff to “God Called In Sick Today”, which previously was how they ended their shows. Now, if you have seen AFI before, you know what a big deal this is… Davey not only jumps into the crowd to sing with their fans, he stands on the palms of the fans and as they lift him up like a God, he holds the microphone up, letting the voices of the room fill the equipment.

Not one voice went unheard.

From here they closed the show, and again “through our bleeding we are one!” filled the air. After a few moments they came back onto the stage, performing their cover of the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” as well as “Dancing Through Sunday” and closing with “Silver and Cold”, both off of their 2003 album Sing The Sorrow.

This band always amazes its audience. Like a religious experience, you go in slightly nervous and eager to learn and leave feeling like you can conquer the world.

I can’t wait for them to come back…

~Stephy Hayward

PHOTOCREDIT: © 2013 AFI/A Fire Inside and the respected photographers- all rights reserved

By Stephy Muzio

Stephanie " Stephy " Muzio (formerly Hayward) - Public Relations / Writer/ Photographer and Co-Founder of ZRockR Magazine Co-host of ZRockR Magazine LIVE! Stephy was raised on rock and roll. Originally from Illinois, Stephy is the daughter of an aspiring metal guitarist and a former rock n roll radio dj. Stephy’s first concert at the tender age of 8 was Rob Zombie at the original Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas, where she happily threw horns up and sang along to "Dragula" with the best of them ( she incidentally loves horror films too!) . She performed with the VGA choir at the 2007 Video Game Awards show at Mandalay Bay when it was hosted by Samuel L Jackson, sharing the stage with the likes of Foo Fighters as well as Kid Rock. An LVA alum, when she isn’t singing or playing herself (she plays a few different instruments), she is out in support of the local scene and at her friends gigs around the southwest and even when she is back home in Illinois! She has written as well as done some photography previously for a couple of smaller zines including Vegas SoundZ when it was in print. Stephy takes the adage of ” If it’s too loud that is just too damn bad! ” to heart- after all- she was raised around screaming guitars, thunderous drums, production studios and only Led Zeppelin and Nirvana played extremely loud would put her to sleep as a kid! Stephy is a large part of the backbone of ZRockR.

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