Music
How to feel when your favourite band reforms (temporarily)
As the saying goes, good things don’t last forever. But no one ever warned me how to feel when my favourite band would reform just over two years after they called it quits with a farewell tour.
Following news that Alexisonfire are to reform for a string of festival dates throughout 2015 (that’s Reading and Leeds for European fans), my emotional state is, for want of a better phrase, all over the shop. After the immediate elation, where I shook my friend around by the shoulders and gawped at her speechless for a few moments, came fear.
Complete and utter ticket fear.
Much like the sweaty state I found myself in when trying to bag tickets to their 10th anniversary show in 2012, the thought of not being squashed against the barrier when my favourite band reform is terrifying. It’s the gig I didn’t think I’d see happen, at least not so soon, and now the festival set I simply cannot miss.
I won’t be alone in this either. For anyone who grew up listening to post-hardcore, Alexisonfire were the ones we all agreed on.
For me, Watch Out! is the flawless filling to a back-catalogue I could quite happily listen to on repeat until the end of time. Alexisonfire could mix up their Reading and Leeds setlist 10 different ways and I’d still be happy.
On record, they were the channel to vent teenage angst through, and live, it was all that and more. I travelled up and down the country to see the Canadian five-piece command crowds of all sizes, climaxing with a main stage appearance at Reading and Leeds 2009. I’ve never felt more protective of a band playing main stage, as I introduced my dad (he was there) to the most important men in my life. There’s never a good time for that, is there?
Now in 2015, George, Dallas, Wade, Chris and Jordan will reunite under the same heart-shaped skull banner to do it all over again.
Having all gone on to explore new projects since the band’s demise, it seems even these punks couldn’t resist another round of glorious, Alexisonfire-sized chaos.
Alexisonfire will play the main stage on Saturday at Reading and Sunday at Leeds, joining headliners Metallica, Bring Me The Horizon and Marmozets. The band have also made this their exclusive European performance over the summer, so that’s just the way it’s got to be.
It’s impossible to avoid the bittersweet feeling of the whole occasion, if we’re honest. Just when I was able to play That Girl Possessed without wallowing in a whirlwind of sadness and self-pity, Alexisonfire will be back and gone again in a blink of an eye.
But as the other saying, sort of, goes: It’s better to have moshed and lost, than never to have moshed at all.
So when your favourite band reforms temporarily – and whether they choose to do exclusive shows, albums in full or a surprise set without warning – I suggest you take it for what it is and have a lovely time.
See you at the front!
Reading and Leeds Festival 2015 tickets are on sale now, head to Ticketmaster.co.uk/reading-leeds-festival-2015.
