REVIEW: Armor For Sleep Celebrates 20 Years of What To Do When You Are Dead

Apr 10

4/06 @ Empire Live, Albany

*Photo by Corey Dempsey, Gallery by Kiki Vassilakis*

“The band is high energy. The crowd is receiving that energy and giving it right back multiplied by however fucking many people are packed into this venue right now, and the vibes are electric.”

On Sunday, April 6th, Armor For Sleep brought the 20th anniversary tour for their landmark album, What To Do When You Are Dead, to the stage at Empire Live. The following is a stream of consciousness retelling of the evening’s events.

It’s about 5:30 pm on a Sunday and I’m sitting in the Fidens Brewing Company Taproom with an old friend from high school and her husband. We’re reminiscing about the good ol’ days, our mutual love for Armor for Sleep and our excitement about the show. Am I even that excited though? I don’t even think I really like this album.

How did I get here? I’m 37 years old, I’ve got a baby at home and I’ve now been pigeonholed as the emo guy at Metroland. If there’s an emo show in town, you better believe I’m going to be writing about it. I guess there are worse things to be in this world.

It’s now 6:40 pm and I give my name at the door and get right in. I spent my entire high school existence wanting to be cool enough to be “on the list” and now, in my late thirties, I’ve finally arrived. Fuck yes!

Anyways, the tattoo and gauged-ear game is strong to quite strong in this venue. This all feels very familiar. Yellowcard’s “Ocean Avenue” is playing through the PA system and the crowd is definitely vibing. Can confirm: I’ve been here before.

I’m settling in as the old man by the bar who may or may not be having a mid-life crisis because he’s attending a different version of the same show he went to twenty years ago. All of a sudden, my depressing internal monologue is interrupted by a group of people screaming, “It’s four o’clock in the fucking morning!” with The Used’s “The Taste of Ink” playing over the PA. It may be a Sunday, but the crowd came to party.

7:30 pm and Hellogoodbye has taken the stage. Somebody in the crowd is yelling things which interrupts some of the details, but long story short, they’re playing an acoustic variation of their set and Ben Jorgensen from Armor For Sleep lent them his guitar. My friend Eric claims Hellogoodbye ran into this exact same situation when they played at The Shelter Skatepark (RIP) back in like 2005. Either this band has horrendous luck when it comes to playing Albany or this is all part of an elaborate bit. Either way, it feels like a unique Hellogoodbye show that we’re about to experience.

Three songs in and Forrest Kline, guitarist and frontman, is absolutely killing it. Varied acoustic set be damned, he is bringing all of the energy. Two other friends have now corroborated Eric’s version of the events at The Shelter Skatepark and also claim that I was there with them. This is some Twilight Zone shit right here. Was I really at this same exact show twenty years ago?

Kline is now shirtless and singing “Here (In Your Arms)” in Spanish. The reasons why are unclear, but is that even important? Elaborate bit or not, this is fucking sweet.

Set over and A+ for Hellogoodbye. I’m still not clear on what happened or why, but that was an epic set. Feels like they put on an amazing show regardless of the situation they’re dropped into. And not for nothing, but Kline is in his forties and he looks incredible with his shirt off. Maybe I should try the whole pescetarian thing?

Boys Night Out is up next and this is the set I’m most excited about. I cannot express just how obsessed I was with Make Yourself Sick back in the good ol’ days. For those keeping track at home, I’m still having a bit of an existential crisis, but that Hellogoodbye set was a great reminder of why I love this shit so much.

Boys NIght Out close with “I Got Punched in the Nose…” and the crowd was very into it. I’m not sure if it was my own expectations, but the less said on this one, the better. My existential crisis is back in full force.

It’s 9:13 pm and Armor For Sleep has taken the stage. In a welcome divergence from the official ‘Anniversary Show Standard Operating Procedure; they’re not opening the set with album-opener and lead single, “Car Underwater”, or even track two, “The Truth About Heaven”. I respect the self-awareness; you have to save that for the end of the set.

Set track three, album track five “Stay On The Ground”. This is going real hard y’all. Professionalism and objectivity be damned—I’m screaming right along with everybody else.

I came in kind of expecting to hate this but I’m definitely not hating this. You know how certain albums from certain bands are “yours”? What To Do When You Are Dead wasn’t my Armor For Sleep album—that would be Dream to Make Believe. Right now, none of that matters. The band is high energy. The crowd is receiving that energy and giving it right back multiplied by however fucking many people are packed into this venue right now, and the vibes are electric.

We’re about an hour in. They’ve cruised through the album tracks (minus the aforementioned heavy hitters) and a smattering of tracks from the rest of their catalog. They’re about to play “The Truth About Heaven” and “Car Underwater”, but before they launch into those songs, Jorgensen shares some closing thoughts with the crowd.

“I was in a pretty dark place when I wrote these songs,” Jorgensen says. “But seeing and hearing the response from all of you is what kept me going. And for that I’d like to thank you all from the bottom of my heart.”

That right there is the thing about this emo shit. Put aside the critical appraisals of the sometimes cringey lyrics (and yes, if we’re being honest, the “Car Underwater” chorus is cringey AF). People feel heard and seen when they pour their entire being into these songs and people spend their hard-earned money to scream those words back at them. The people who listen to these songs know that they’re not alone in what they’re feeling and find the strength to keep going.

The rapturous reception to the speech followed by the deafening screaming of “I’m in a car underwater with time to kill…” has washed away every last bit of cynicism and I’ve completely given myself over to the music. I scream back, “thinking back, I forgot to tell you this,” in response.