LIVE REVIEW: American Football, Hello Mary, Rock City, Nottingham, 11/09/2024
Photo Credit: Abbi Draper
It’s not every day that genre-defining, international legends like American Football come to town, and the music fans of Nottingham were ready and waiting in their masses outside Rock City before its doors opened. Clearly, a fair few fans were not willing to take their chances of having a less than favourable viewing spot for this rare visit. Once inside, the band’s merch queue snaked through the foyer into Black Cherry Lounge, an adjoining room at the venue. For those willing to gamble that their t-shirt size might still be there for them on their way out, Hello Mary was there to set the night off to a great start.
This alternative rock three piece are ones to watch. Their 90s grunge and shoegaze influences are clear, but their performance never felt dated or stale. Despite being comparatively early on in their lifespan as a band, especially when compared to alt rock titans like American Football, they exuded cohesiveness and confidence as a trio, even in the face a of a couple of technical difficulties at the start. A particular highlight was 0% – a track from their brand new album Emita Ox, which rears its head with a powerful blast of angst and fuzzy noise. Combining distortive melodies, dazzling vocal harmonies and explosive drums, this band really do have it all and move between different rock stylings with precision and expertise. Plenty of Rock City goers will definitely now have Hello Mary firmly on the radar, and rightfully so. 8/10
LP1 is a seminal album for a lot of people. The iconic image of the American Football house from the album’s artwork can be conjured vividly within the minds of hundreds and thousands of music fans all over the world. As it was projected behind the stage, the crowd roared with applause and excitement. Opening with instrumental track Five Silent Miles, the ambient, jangly tone for the evening was set and the crowd began to be transported into the world of American Football.
Despite frontman Mike Kinsella admitting to some first night jitters, these Midwest emo veterans appeared at home on the Rock City stage on the first night of their UK tour. Their isoteric, carefully calculated rhythms and intricately plucked acoustic melodies came out in full force, with The Summer Ends. Steve Lamos’ trumpet solo acted here as an opening address, welcoming in the changing of the seasons with their deeply autumnal sound.
As the band moved through their beloved LP1, the cinematic quality to the album became clear, floating through songs. The reverberating distortion to their strings comes to life in a live setting, especially one as mighty as Rock City, especially with the complex rattling of drums, which are more present live than is the case in the recorded mix. The cascading riffs of Honestly? and familiar motifs of For Sure were enchanting, bordering on hypnotising.
American Football invited the audience to step into their house in Urbana, Illiois with further grayscale projections throughout the night. The audience, however, should probably have brushed up on their table manners as visitors. During the band’s performance, fans in front of the projector quickly figured out that their hand gestures would be caught by the light and as a result, the stage saw a mixture of wholesome heart-shaped hands, cheeky simulated kisses between hand puppets and even cheekier simulations of… other things. Fortunately for these mischief makers, the band did see the funny side, with Mike Kinsella jokingly telling them off with the classic parent line of “Don’t make me come out there!” This funny interlude dispelled the chaos slightly, but there were still instances of phone cameras casting massive rectangular shadows on screen (met with hand puppets beating up the giant rectangle in return.) This feels like a technical issue that could probably be avoided with better planning, but mutterings throughout the crowd were enjoying the secondary entertainment created as a result.
Unsurprisingly, the climax of their performance came with Never Meant – easily the band’s biggest song, signalling the end of the album’s playthrough. The crowd joined Mike to sing this one out in unison, holding onto each other’s shoulders for a moment of real musical community. This is a band that has brought people together for over twenty-five years, and their legacy was reflected in the varying ages spotted throughout the crowd. Given the thematic and lyrical openness, the softness in the instrumentation and the emphasis on atmosphere that the album offers, it’s no wonder why so many people have been touched by the album and have been able to engage with it and insert themselves within it in so many different ways.
The difficulty with separating the performance into the LP1 section and the ‘everything else’ section, which felt and was treated by the crowd like an encore, is that the momentum built up throughout the evening began to fizzle out. Their later work, which is also wonderful, didn’t deserve this treatment, but sadly what had previously felt hypnotising now started to lean a little bit more to the sleepy side rather than the awe-striking force it had been previously. That being said, the presence of Mike’s partner Justine Fallon for Uncomfortably Numb and Every Wave To Ever Rise added a beautiful dimension to the evening to round out what had still been a glorious night for the band.
While the curfew cut the night short, leaving Doom in Full Bloom unplayed for Nottingham on this occasion, American Football fans were able to leave the venue having experienced an undeniably important, classic alt rock album in its full glory. Twenty five years on, LP1 is still incredibly special. 7/10
Written By: Izzy Morris
