After only a handful of songs to open up their Crisis 20th anniversary set, it became abundantly clear that Alexisonfire are the best band to ever do specifically this. That particular 2000s blend of post-hardcore and screamo, with alternating glass-gargling screams and high, powerful melodic singing — they set the standard. There is simply no one better at these stylings than George Pettit, Dallas Green and Wade MacNeil. Their melodies are instantly recognizable and haunting, and they excel at telling stories with a mix of rage and longing.
Crisis was their third full-length outing, and it brought them a mainstream success unlike anything a screamo band had received before. Buoyed by their massive melodies, they dominated hard rock radio and MuchMusic in 2006. Dallas Green differentiated himself from every other "clean singer in a screaming band" by abandoning all trappings of that type of vocal — he whispered, he crooned, and he belted, but he never whined or begged the way their contemporaries did.
It was a homecoming for Alexisonfire on August 14, and the crowd was ready to stoke the fire. First, Vancouver art rockers Concrete Vehicles (f.k.a. Computer) brought weight and heat to kick things off, and Underoath launched into a career-spanning and body-crushing set, including highlights like "Hallelujah" and "A Boy Brushed Red Living in Black and White."
Then, the St. Catharines icons arrived. The pit was ready to lose it; all they needed was a spark from the band. Take the absolutely show-stopping classic "Boiled Frogs" — where Pettit unleashed a torrent of blue-collar rage on record two decades ago, and shredded the same lung-tearing verses on their first night of the double headliner at RBC Amphitheatre. With the catchiest guitar riff in all of post-hardcoredom and that gritty MacNeil-led second verse, plus a haunting outro sung by Green, the tune whipped the entire sold-out show into a frenzy. These vocalists sound as urgent and powerful as they ever have, and Pettit in particular was in top form across their Crisis-spanning setlist.
The intro drum part for "This Could Be Anywhere in the World" is a contender for the most dangerous solo drum section ever written, as Jordan Hastings (AOF's drummer since 2005) did the iconic ride bell groove before launching into the snare fill that launched a thousand mosh pits. By the time the iconic drop D riff hit, the band and the crowd were electric, as Pettit screamed his brains out: "This town has its claws buried in my neck / This town, it takes lives without mercy, without hate". A heartbreaking and bone crushing song about a city where "streets are in distress," it's more pertinent than ever — and the title is true. It could be about the band's hometown of St. Catharines, or Hamilton, Detroit, or Toronto. Take your pick: "This city is haunted by ghosts."
Even on songs without the same rock radio status as those two, the band brought heat. Back in 2006, the lone lead vocal feature on Crisis was Planes Mistaken for Stars' vocalist Gared O'Donnell (who died in 2021). Recreating his rasp was a duty best left for Wade MacNeil, who did show-stopping work for the first half of the swampy, doom-y "You Burn First" before the band launched into a heartfelt tribute to their fallen friend.
That feeling of honouring lost loved ones permeated the setlist — as the icy, grainy visuals of the titular "Crisis" called back to the 1977 catastrophic and deadly blizzard that struck Southern Ontario with archival footage. That event required military intervention, stranding over a thousand students in their schools for days on end, and tragically resulted in 29 deaths across the region.
It was, however, the deep album cut "To a Friend" that broke hearts on Friday night. Green began the usually fast-paced hardcore song completely solo, choosing to begin the song as a mournful ballad about a loved one lost to addiction. By the time he reached an apocalyptic crescendo of vibrato during his verse, belting, "And will you throw it all away / for nothing more than a simple taste?" the crowd erupted in stunned cheers and applause. The band's bassist (and a top-tier barber, dancer, hype man and jester) Chris Steele even went over to Green to kiss him on the cheek in support after that high note, lending support to his friend of a quarter century.
After running through the album in full, the band took a brief moment to recoup before roaring back on stage with the exceedingly rare and underrated Crisis bonus track "Thrones." They crushed the stoner metal-tinged paranoia of "Sweet Dreams of Otherness" (from 2022's Otherness) before giving the old heads a taste of early career Alexisonfire with the now-classic screamo of "Pulmonary Archery," complete with the eye-popping visuals consisting of projections of the band absolutely killing it draped in front of them.
For the finale, the Watch Out! ballad "Happiness by the Kilowatt" became a shaggy anthem, slowly morphing first into a crowd-sung version of Neil Young's "Hey Hey My My (Into the Black)" before Pettit took over the iconic "Hey hey, my my / Rock and roll will never die" with his throat shredding scream for the climax.
With a new record on the way, on the heels of this Crisis anniversary tour and their massive-sounding fan-favourite 2022 comeback LP, Otherness, the band makes themselves more vital than ever. The songs of Crisis sound as if they were written yesterday, and they were performed with the same heartbreaking rage and urgency as the day they were written.
As Pettit remarked, the first of two sold-out shows proved that the band's fan base has grown even larger as the years passed, as groups of teenagers, old fans and even parents spin the band's material for friends and newcomers alike. Their music is blasted all around the country, the world, and at "bonfires in Beamsville."
Alexisonfire are beloved for a reason. They're still the only band ever.
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