Against Me! @ Warped Tour0

At this point, I’m sure you’ve, at the very least, heard of Against Me!, a punk group from Gainesville, Florida. It was interesting finally seeing them live. They’ve been around for a while now, since the late 90′s, though I always remember them for the music video for “Don’t Lose Touch,” one of the singles off of their third album (Searching for a Former Clarity, 2005); you know, that badass and very energetic music video they filmed in reverse? Keep reading for the rest of my review, and as always, you can find more photos from their set on my Flickr.

Their sound has definitely changed since then. I’d say it’s best described as a cleaned up and smoother version of what it once was, which can really go either way (for better or for worse), though I tend to end up feeling it’s a step in the wrong direction. In this case, it is kind of hard to say. They have certainly stayed true to their roots and maintain much of their original, heavy guitar driven style; their early punk influences are still clearly audible. However, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit bored during their performance. Whether it was that “cleaned up” sound I referred to, or just the fact that they were pretty stationary throughout their set is still up in the air. Who knows, maybe it was just because it was the end of the day, and I was worn out and ready to go home. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, after all, it was an incredibly hot Vegas summer day, and it was fairly early on in the tour. Nonetheless, I wanted more, more energy, emotion, more something, at least just a glimpse of what can be seen in that video to get me through the last few sets of the day.