Live Review : AFI + TR/ST @ Academy, Manchester on August 22nd 2026

There was a point in the noughties when it distinctly looked like AFI were on a direct trajectory to be stella. The former hardcore punks had morphed into an emotive crossbreed of Goth and post-punk that spoke directly to the alienated masses of the first decade of the new millennium. In “Sing the Sorrow”, they crafted a perfect synergy of dark poeticism and melodic splendour. Its follow-up “Decemberunderground” added grandiose commerciality to the mix, and suddenly they were a mainstream commodity, being talked about in the same breath as U2 and Depeche Mode. They needed one further release to kick-start them into the stratosphere, and no matter how good we now regard 2009’s “Crash Love” to be, it wasn’t that album. As the decade blurred into the next, AFI found themselves shifting from the column entitled potential next big thing into the one reserved for well-regarded cult entities.

Even though they never made it to that lofty stadium-bothering position, there is still a real reverence about this evening's show. This is AFI’s second UK headline show in 16 years and the Academy is heaving, having already been upgraded from the down-the-road Ritz. The room is already at capacity when support TR/ST take the stage, with the AFI faithful having already staked their claim for prime stage-front positions from the moment that the doors swung open. This Canadian outfit are the musical output of Robert Alfons, whose vocal attributes are accompanied by a sole unidentified keyboardist. They exist within the lo-fi confines of electronic music. There is not enough euphoric joy in the material to deem it to be pop, but there is also not enough sullen introspection for it to become darkwave. There is frankly an air of a Temu Gary Numan about the whole affair and they reach the end of their allotted thirty minutes with very little fanfare indeed. In a subterranean Berlin nightclub, this stuff it is probably the bee’s knees, but in a large room in Manchester it fails to ignite or even engage an audience waiting for a band that hasn't been seen in nearly a decade.

The atmosphere that wafts around the Academy the moment the lights dim and the intro strikes up is frankly extraordinary. It is the pent-up emotion that can only be summoned when interacting with a band that once was your life. The audience is almost predominantly mid to late-thirties goths and geeks for whom “Sing the Sorrow” and “Decemberunderground” soundtracked the angst of their teenage years, and when they play anything pre-2013, the reception borders on deafening. “Back Sails in the Sunset’s” ‘Strength through Wounding’ may only last for a minute and a half, but it provides the perfect opening salvo. The crowd, drunk with expectation scream “Through our bleeding, we are one” in unison, transported back to a time in their lives when music could soothe even the deepest wound. The retrospective feast continues unabated as they crash into ‘Girls Not Grey’ and ‘Love Like Winter’, both dispensed with at a breakneck velocity.

There is definitely a feeling of vitriolic glee about AFI this evening. They may all now have hit fifty, but they make no concession to the onset of years. Hunter Burgan and Jade Puget career around the stage like men half their age, and there is a collective aura of being comfortable in their own skin. As said, that point when they could have been the biggest band in the world may well have passed them by, but what we witness tonight is a band totally at ease with both their past and the present. Davey Havok has moved beyond his slick Goth prince look of previous decades and now resembles an amalgamation of Live Aid Freddie Mercury and Frank-N-Furter. He is an extraordinarily charismatic presence this evening, climbing on amps, destroying microphones, unintentionally self-harming and pushing around the lighting rig with fierce determination. 

As stated this is an audience that are here to regale in the emotional turmoil of their youth and it is obvious that everyone bar the most committed upfront have lost touch with the band’s output since their heyday. ‘Escape from Los Angeles from 2021’s “Bodies” suffers from a lack of recognition, and the four tracks aired from last year’s “Silver Bleeds the Black Sun” are met with polite indifference. They also signal a further evolution, taking them down a distinct Killers-esque direction that feels profoundly different from their previous incarnation. However, when we are back in the safety of the past, the ambience of the room immediately resets itself to euphoric reverence. ‘File 13’ is received with a rapturous familiarity that makes Davey remark that material from that era of the band gets a much more familiar reception here than it does in the States, which displays the fanatical loyalty of their UK fanbase given that they only first made it over here in 1998. 

‘Miss Murder’ provides a cumulative finale to the main set with every larynx in the auditorium screaming on to the fantastically saccharine chorus. The encore is also astonishingly virile as they power through ‘The Days of the Phoenix’ and then culminate with a stirring ‘Silver and Cold’. And then they leave, providing the only truly bittersweet moment of the evening. For a band with such a strong bond with their faithful and such a fruitful and fertile back catalogue, it feels rather stingy to restrict their strident return to the UK stage to a measly 68 minutes. Yes, they were excellent and yes, their atmosphere was in most parts’ electric, but would 22 minutes more to play say ‘Bleed Black’, ‘The Killing Lights’ and ‘A Single Second’ (all part of the London set the night before) been too much to ask for? A wonderful evening, but as Oliver said “Please Sir, can we have some more?”

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
AFI + TR/ST