Technicolor

Archers of Loaf Reunion

The fact that I’m writing this is a dream come true.  I’ll try not to be corny, but I feel like a kid at Disney World writing this.  The first time I listened to Archers of Loaf was when I bought “White Trash Heroes” on a whim in 1998.  A few months later, they came through to Orlando, and I didn’t go.  Of course—they then broke up.  As time goes on, I become enamored with Archers of Loaf.  I was amazed with their sound, and would just listen to their records over and over.  In a still formative age for music, I felt like I had found the real sound I had been looking for for a long time (you know, that new sound I was lookin’ for…).

So for the past 12 years, I had always said that I just wanted to see them once.  Hearing something to the effect that they were no longer on speaking terms, I had understood it that seeing them would just never happen.

At a party about a year and a half ago, the question came up, “If there is one band that you could have reunite, who would it be?”  Brian Quain and I unanimously said Archers of Loaf.

So last month, I heard they were getting back together.  And I’ve seen My Bloody Valentine, and some other bands who have gotten back together.  But this was completely different.  This was the holy grail. 

Archers of Loaf were everything I had hoped they would have been live.  Seeing them at the Troubadour in Hollywood (which couldn’t have been more appropriate) was (all hyperbole aside) a dream come true.  Each night was 25 songs with two encores, but they played hard.  They played like they had been waiting for 12 years to play together, and with the same excitement that I had built up since the first time I heard the beginning note of “Fashion Bleeds”.

You could feel the ferver in the room.  Everyone sang at the top of their lungs, and a week later my voice is still recovering.  The band could feel everyone’s excitement, and played as hard as they could while beaming smiles.  I mean, for 2011, I can’t honestly say how relevant their sound is; theirs is a very mid-90s sound that lived somewhere between Pavement and Nirvana.  We’re now gearing up for the apocalypse, and our current sound barely allows for the Archers to exist.  So going into this I was a little nervous.  Were people going to be excited?  Were they going to sell this out?  

Playing all of the “vs the Greatest of All Time” EP, and heavily tapping from “Icky Mettle” and “Vee Vee”, we still got some key tracks from “All the Nation’s Airports”.

I’m still a kid on cloud 9 thinking back to last weekend, and thanks to my incredible girlfriend, I have the videos below to go back and watch over and over.  Setlists are below, and accompanied videos from both nights are linked within. 

6.3.11 Set list:

1.  Step Into the Light
2.  1985
3.  Fabricoh
4.  Harnessed in Slums
5.  Worst Defense
6.  Attack of the Killer Bees
7.  Greatest of All Time
8.  Lowest Part is Free!
9.  Freezing Point
10.  Dead Red Eyes
11.  You and Me
12.  Web in Front
13.  Revenge
14.  What Did You Expect?
15.  Might
16.  Nostalgia
17.  Audiowhore
18.  Slow Worm

Encore 1:

19.  Scenic Pastures
20.  Form and File
21.  Bacteria
22.  Wrong

Encore 2:

23.  Plumb Line
24.  Vocal Shrapnel (???)
25.  All Hail the Black Market

6.4.11 Set list:

1.  Audiowhore
2.  Lowest Part is Free!
3.  Freezing Point
4.  Revenge
5.  All Hail the Black Market
6.  Harnessed in Slums
7.  Dead Red Eyes
8.  Acromegaly
9.  Scenic Pastures
10.  Form and File
11.  Let the Loser Melt
12.  Plumb Line
13.  Nostalgia
14.  You and Me
15.  Might
16.  Web in Front
17.  Wrong

Encore 1:

18.  Strangled by the Stereo Wire
19.  1985
20.  Fabricoh
21.  What Did You Expect?
22.  Greatest of All Time

Encore 2:

23.  ???
24.  ???
25.  Bacteria

(mislabeled as Friday night)

The following photos were shot by my girlfriend from the second night.  I actually can’t take credit for many of these photos—I was too busy shouting until my voice popped: