American Football + Hello Mary, SWX Bristol, 13/09/24

Fuz
Sep 26, 2024
5 min read

Updated: Sep 29, 2024

When introducing someone to the intimidating world of math rock and Midwest emo, American Football and their debut album, LP1 are the essential starting point to the conversation despite the band’s split, only a year after its release in 1999. While they by no means invented the ideas employed throughout their music, that album is widely and deservedly regarded as genre-defining. The melancholic and clean guitar tones layered with countermelodies, unusual time signatures and coming-of-age themes explored on the album spoke to a generation and more after.

The iconic, Never Meant may as well be the poster child for this sphere of music and makes for an easy-access gateway into it. The vastly beloved song even reached meme status along with American Football’s re-emerged popularity around the mid 2010’s. Having split simply due to differing paths chosen in life briefly before they graduated, the college band comfortably reformed and began to release more music 16 years later. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the debut album release and to celebrate, American Football are taking it back on the road, playing for crowds who have likely never had the chance to experience it live. Crammed with just about as many fans at it could hold, the sold out SWX in Bristol hosted American Football with support from Hello Mary.

Hello Mary

The New York three-piece consists of guitarist and vocalist, Helena Straight, drummer and vocalist, Stella Wave with bassist, Mikaela Oppenheimer. On their clearly successful and work driven stride, Hello Mary have released their second album in two years, Emita Ox. To an immediately dense crowd, Straight took a moment to express their excitement and gratitude,

“Thank you for being here. This is fucking awesome; we’ve never played here before so this is a big deal. It’s also a big deal because our album is coming out today – our new album… Thank you so much to American Football, this is fucking amazing”.

Yet another band who repeatedly get stuck with the lazy label of ‘indie’, Hello Mary set the stage ablaze with a broad palette at their disposal - veering from grunge and noise-rock choruses to serene math-rock verses with everything along the way. Between the songs were glitch style interludes that sampled chirping birds and skipping spoken word. Their song, Float from their new album made a tense introduction to the set that steadily built and broke into an all-out brawl, featuring the abrasive screams of not-so-backing vocalist Stella Wave. Wave was also found taking the spotlight on the infectious post-punk follow-up, 0%. The trio clearly found a lot of joy playing this track live. Straight could be seen gleefully jiving and looming menacingly about the stage while Oppenheimer effortlessly laid down her sharp and integral grooves. With full force against the industrial, syncopated bass, Wave yells, “I told you that you can’t be here. I ask myself, why are you here?”. She screams, “I don't know, I don't know, I don't know”.

While the phrase ‘math rock’ is a fitting description for much of Hello Mary’s tone, they don’t come across as a typical math-rock band – the kind that dump as many time signatures as they can into one song, alienating the casual listener. Instead, they use it as a tool in effective measure. The 5/4-time signature of Footstep Misstep thematically serves the song’s fever dreamlike feel. The song is laced with impeccable two and three-piece harmonies that weave in and around Straight’s airy vocal melodies. The instinctually written lyrics are appropriately vague and provide the listener with a mere hunch of the story at hand, “Lantern fly shows her the way inside. Truth won't deny, slow pace. Stark face, you're right. Help her along. Raise her real strong”.

To illustrate the significance of Hello Mary’s inclusion to this bill - American Football are a band who’s sound notoriously cut through the ways in which emotion was typically conveyed in their scene at the time, with distortion and screamed vocals left out the door. To quote Mike Kinsella’s lyrics on Never Meant - they wanted, “not to be overly dramatic”.

The addition of Hello Mary’s bolster speaks volumes for the headliner’s admiration for their supports and serves as an accolade for how they are advancing the genre.

Hello Mary played to a crammed SWX, chock-a-block with die-hard fans who are specifically there to see the ever-elusive American Football. Despite this, the trio held the room by the collar. As proven on their recent releases and to the Midwest emo loving crowd of SWX - no door is left unopened when imagining this band’s future trajectory.

Listen to Emita Ox here

Listen to Hello Mary here

American Football

With no introduction necessary, the opening arpeggiated chords of the lyric-less Five Silent Miles veiled a quiet over the stirring crowd of SWX. The solemn, yet climactic end to American Football’s first EP made for a perfect introduction to this performance, drawing the encapsulated crowd’s anticipation for Mike Kinsella’s voice to finally grace the room. Played with a fresh order, The Summer Ends marked the start of LP1’s track list. The once three-piece college band, now made up of six onstage, performed the songs with fuller realised dynamics. Enriched with vibraphone, melodica, keys and more, they granted new life to the songs this audience knew like the back of their hands.

The show played out like an immersive cinematic experience, taking us on a journey through their most beloved album and then beyond - opening with a song from the very first EP, then from LP1 to a selection from LP2, introduced with the album’s opener, Where Are We Now? Followed by LP3 with help from Kinsella’s partner, Justine Fallon - performing Uncomfortably Numb and Every Wave to Ever Rise. Since having purchased the iconic Illinois house pictured on LP1’s album cover and saving it from potential demolition in 2023, the band can even take us on a virtual tour of the property. With each song throughout the set, shaky-cam footage faded in to the backdrop. As the set list transitioned from the first album into the second, the audience got to make their way from outside to inside the mysterious and gloomy home. It made for an appropriately modest, atmospheric and frankly perfect way to celebrate the seminal album’s anniversary.

Kinsella didn’t forget to hand Hello Mary flowers for their explosive opening act,

“It’s kind of a big a deal. You can’t really imagine how much time, thought and effort they put into making a record, and the courage it takes to come out and play it in front of people. So, super cool”

… with the crowd in firm agreement, Kinsella continued, “We’re gonna play one more song and then… more songs”.

With a pause, Kinsella dryly introduced the song he knew SWX had been waiting to hear… “Wonderwall”.

The opening lick to Never Meant kicked in and the crowd erupted.

You’ll have to take it on good authority that Kinsella’s mic was plugged in during the performance of this song.

This room of strangers surely left SWX feeling as if they had just attended a family reunion. This album clearly means so much to the cult fanbase that American Football have garnered over these twenty-five years. The feelings of misplacement, uncertainty and loneliness in your early 20s is an emotion that this album met, hammer on nail. For a band with such a sombre and understated tone, the entire venue was electrified, people could be seen dancing with their arms around each other, chanting every lyric Kinsella sang right back at him. For these themes to continually unite so many generations serve as a soothing reminder that there is joy to be discovered amidst the sadness.

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