Alexisonfire Play Secret Hometown Show

L3

St. Catharines, ON

on Jun 23 2009

Ryan Kelpin (CHARTattack)

06/24/2009 4:33pm

It had to happen eventually.

After years of dominating the Canadian music scene, Alexisonfire returned home to St. Catharines to play the L3, one of the venues they got their start at playing to dozens of people almost 10 years ago.

There were a few more than people at this MySpace "Secret" Show, though. The line to get in to this first come, first serve concert was around the block and 1,000 people strong. Around 300 people who waited as long as 10 hours in advance were rewarded with wristbands to the homecoming show and needless to say, they were quite pumped to be there.

Opening band Children Collide were the most pleasant surprise of the night, and showcased their Dinosaur Jr.-influenced distortion freak outs in between their new wave-y bass lines. The crowd didn't seem to into the non-screamo music, but a few people noticeably enjoyed them, especially me.

Next up came the boys of the hour, a band who I have seen live at least 10 times, but hadn't seen play the L3 in around six years. Alexisonfire entered the stage to the roars of their dedicated supporters and immediately jumped into their new hit, "Young Cardinals," which old and new fans ate up alike.

The hometown return had a surprising set, composed mostly of hits and older material, as opposed to what most bands would play at what was technically a CD release show for the Old Crows/Young Cardinals album.

I'd never seen so much crowd-surfing, screaming and balls-out energy from a band and crowd alike in my entire life when Alexis jumped into "Accidents" and "Pulmonary Archery."

Wade MacNeil, Dallas Green and George Pettit thanked the crowd profusely throughout the night with kind words about all the support the Niagara Region has given them over the years.

Green also had this big surprise regarding the upcoming Warped Tour, "I'd like to thank those of you that sent us MySpace messages saying that we are 'shit' and we 'suck' for not playing the Toronto date of the Warped Tour. Well, we ARE fucking playing it now, and those people are not invited!"

Fan favourites "Rough Hands," "Boiled Frogs" and "No Transitory" also popped up in the set list, as well as the seldom-played "Waterwings (And Other Poolside Fashion Faux Pas)," which surprised everybody. Those who heard the new album and thought George had lost the ability to scream like he used to were proven wrong by the energetic frontman, who yelled like the champ all night long.

They closed with a cover of Bouncing Souls' "True Believers" and continued to thank the crowd once the music stopped after the most intense and sentimental show I have ever seen. I couldn't tell who was more appreciative — the fans who had waited to see them in this environment again for so long, or Alexisonfire for getting to be with a lot of the people who were with them since the release of their first album... we'll call it a tie.