Sad to say that July is only gracing me with one concert, but at least it was a good one this past weekend! At this point, I’ve kind of lost track with how many times I’ve seen Armor For Sleep, but I can confirm that I will never stop.
This time around I headed to a new veue in a quiet town in the Pittsburgh area. First, let’s talk about this venue. It used to be a church, and if that wasn’t evident from the outside, the inside still blessed you with its beautiful stained glass windows, as well as some pews surrounding the perimeter. The space itself apparently can hold up to 800 people, but I bet it would be a tight fit. It’s a shame they don’t use the choir loft as some kind of VIP viewing area. That would have been cool. But, to add to the strangeness of this venue, there was a fully functional kitchen selling basic food items in the basement, and then there was a very robust record store! The record store had vinyls, cassettes, tshirts, CDs, box sets – new and used- in almost any genre you could think of. It was really neat!
The show opened with New Jersey based band, Flycatcher, who happened to be short a member for that specific show. They had a few fill-ins for their lead guitar, one of which included Ben Jorgensen! When he popped up on stage, I was shocked to realize he’d been standing directly in front of me for like half of their set. Crazy. Their songs were good, though I don’t know that they are a band I’d look into further. The next opener, Spanish Loves Songs, might have had the biggest crowd of the evening. And they were a passionate one. I for one, have never heard of this band, but I can confirm that they are not a group I would have enjoyed listening to. They weren’t bad, but the tone and delivery of his vocals just didn’t jive with me. I was kind of surprised that the crowd got smaller when they were done.
Still, for those of us left, we enjoyed every second of Armor for Sleep’s set. The venue is one that has no barricade, which I always find to be a little jarring, especially for the level of fame they once had. The songs from What to do When You Are Dead dominated the setlist, but I wasn’t mad about that in the slightest. I still wish “Smile for the Camera” from their sohpomore album would make the setlist sometime, but I was still glad we got a few off of it anyway. Dream to Make Believe had the next big cut of songs on the setlist, and you could tell that really pumped up a big majority of the crowd. I do believe a lot of the songs on the setlist were voted on by fans, so that was pretty neat.
It sounds like it might be a little while before I get to see these guys on the road again, so I’m glad I headed out to see them on this tour. I’m hopeful for some new music along the way, but for now I will settle for nostalgia.
