You know, up until the pandemic it had been quite some time since I’d seen Anberlin play music together in a live capacity. Part of that had to do with the fact that they broke up for a little while, but part of me remembers being more impressed with an opening band. To my surprise, the livestream concert I watched of them performing Cities in full was freaking incredible! When I saw that they were doing a three day “residency” at my favorite music venue, I knew I had to go hear them play Cities again live and in person.
Apparently, so did a lot of other people. There was a sold out crowd in attendance Friday night for Anberlin’s set honoring 2007’s Cities. They played that sucker front to back and it was so, so great. Their energy was so high! You could tell they were loving the crowd’s love and they seemed to really enjoy being able to revisit these songs again after so long. We were even treated to a brand new song, “Circles,” that’s do to come out on their new EP being released at the end of the week. I was kind of surprised we were the first crowd to hear it live in any capacity, but I was definitely a fan. I’m certainly looking forward to that new EP.
Of course, the whole album is good, but some of my favorite songs off of Cities include, “Adelaide,” “A Whisper & a Clamor,” “There’s No Mathematics to Love and Loss,” and “Reclusion.” The latter two are really synth heavy and I just find myself really getting into those songs no matter how many times I hear them. Truly some of the best songs out there. Like me, the rest of the crowd went bananas at the start of every song even though we knew full well that they were playing the album in order. It’s still pretty dang exciting. After the album finished through, they took the stage in an encore of a handful of some of their most popular tracks. They’d be foolish not to play “Feel Good Drag,” so that’s of course the song that was played to end the evening.
A fine evening, indeed. If you get the chance to catch these guys playing other “residency” shows in your area, I say get yourself a ticket!