Sing the Sorrow

AFI playing 'Sing the Sorrow' in full at one-time only show with Jawbreaker, Chelsea Wolfe & more

AFI are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their massive mainstream breakthrough Sing the Sorrow by performing it in LA with some amazing openers: Jawbreaker, Chelsea Wolfe, and Choir Boy. It goes down March 11 at The Kia Forum, and AFI say this is the “first and last time ever” that they’ll perform Sing the Sorrow in full. Tickets go on sale Friday (11/18) at 10 AM Pacific with presales starting Wednesday (11/16).

Writing about about Sing the Sorrow in our AFI album guide, we said: Made with the alt-rock production dream team of Butch Vig (who helped Nirvana skyrocket to fame on Nevermind) and Jerry Finn (who did the same for blink-182 on Enema of the State), AFI’s Dreamworks debut arrived three years after The Art of Drowning — marking the band’s longest break between albums by far — and it was like the shot heard ’round the alternative rock world. AFI were still a punk band on this album — most overtly with the breakneck speed of “Dancing Through Sunday,” which also happens to be the first time Jade Puget let AFI fans know he can dish out shred-metal solos — but they were also alternative rock, post-hardcore, industrial rock (“Death of Seasons”), and so much more. They had mastered mosh parts as well as weepy balladry as well as the kind of pure pop songs that helped fully position Robert Smith as a key influence on modern punk (like blink-182’s Jerry Finn-produced, Robert Smith-featuring untitled album would also do a few months later). Like blink-182’s Jerry Finn era albums did for that band, Sing the Sorrow took AFI from being a real-deal punk band to being a band who could rival anything on MTV. And AFI did it not by softening or simplifying their sound but by expanding it. Punk purists might have scoffed at it, but anyone who likes to see rock bands make grand statements would have to admit that Sing the Sorrow was a triumph. It took influence from all over the place — The Cure, Joy Division, Nine Inch Nails, Misfits, Black Flag, Slayer, Metallica, Tim Burton — but fused those influences in a way that really hadn’t been done before and has rarely been done effectively since. It may not be AFI at their most punk, but it’s AFI at their most startlingly original.

Watch some STS videos and the trailer video for the anniversary show: