Armor For Sleep
LIVE GALLERY + REVIEW
12/03/23 @ 24 OXFORD - BY DELANIE RENE
On a beautiful Sunday evening in the Sin City, commonly known as Las Vegas, roaming the Virgin Hotel were elder emos lining up for the 20th Anniversary of Armor For Sleeps Dream to Make Believe Tour. The smell of cigarettes, the sound of slot machines and clapping from winnings, you knew it was going to be a great night. We all entered the dimly lit 24-Oxford venue, everyone grabbing their merch or drinks in anticipation for the show to start.
Accompanying Armor for Sleep was another well-known band, The Spill Canvas. They came on stage hyping up the crowd with old tunes from the early years. It was a blast to the past, tons of people belting their hearts out to a very well-known song from them, ‘Polygraph, Right Now!’ and ‘All Hail the Heartbreaker’ leaving the crowd full of angst and anticipation.
Up next was The Early November, another band that has been around since the beginning of 2000’s, who were also celebrating their 20th anniversary of their album “The Rooms too Cold”. Lead singer Ace Enders came on stage letting everyone know that they were going to play from ending to beginning instead so they can get the depressing songs out of the way and build up to a lighter note. Ace did a fantastic job and sounded amazing. Not a dry eye was around when he sang their famous song “Ever so Sweet” acoustically which then led into their well-known song “I want to hear you sad”. Bless our little emo hearts were hurting by the end of this set.
A screen with large wings appeared in the backdrop, drummer Nash Breen got into position to start the set looking like an angel while front man Ben Jorgenson started playing guitar. Few days into their west coast tour, Armor for Sleep was ready and came in HOT (literally)! They opened with their first three songs from their album, A Dream to Make Believe, before announcing that the lead singer Ben was getting shocked by the microphone. He let the crowd know that he didn’t plan on not playing and that he was going to finish the set one way or another. He threw a towel on the mic and kept rocking out! The audience was wild in the snug venue of the 24-Oxford and rocking out to bangers such as The Wanderer’s Guild, Phantoms Now, and even older songs from another album they mixed in there.
The band was very lively, working in perfect harmony, they played the album to it’s entirety and said that most of the songs were going into retirement after this tour! The band sounded wonderful, Ben even said he was worried this was going to be the worse show on tour with the microphone fiasco, instead saying it ended up being one of the best shows that he has ever played. The crowd sounded amazing while singing back to the band which ended the night with their very well-known song ‘Car Underwater’.
Overall, 10/10 and I would recommend any emo new or old to go and see the 20th anniversary tours! The nostalgia is real.
