PREVIEW: Armor For Sleep, What To Do When You Are Dead 20th Anniversary
04/06 @ Empire Live, Albany
Photo Credit: Corey Dempsey
“While Armor For Sleep was certainly not out of place on the bill, there was something distinct about their sound that made them stand out…My friends and I were all sold.”
March 22, 2002 was the day I attended my first show at Saratoga Winners. My parents had taken me to see Michael Bolton when I was like three, but if I have no memory of it, it doesn’t really count. Plus, it’s not very punk rock to say that my first concert was Michael Bolton.
I was 14 years old and my mom was very apprehensive about allowing me to go. She eventually relented as long as I went with a few friends and my dad stayed the whole time. Again, not very punk rock, but what the hell was I gonna do?
So while my dad posted up at the bar in the back, my friends and I pushed our way up to the front so that we could take part in the pop punk pogo dance. We were all there to see Midtown, a Drive Thru Records staple whose lead single, “Just Rock and Roll,” began with the lyric, “God I wish I could hate you for the rest of my…” Instead of finishing the line, the opening guitar riff kicked in right there. This was basically crack for angsty teenagers. They just couldn’t get enough.
Also on the bill that night was Boston’s Piebald, whose album We Are The Only Friends We Have remains criminally underrated, Albany’s own Rory Breaker (if you’re reading this, you were awesome every time I saw you), and, at that point, an unknown band from New Jersey. That last band was Armor For Sleep.
While Armor For Sleep was certainly not out of place on the bill, there was something distinct about their sound that made them stand out. The typical distorted guitar tone was frequently replaced with spacey reverb and chorus effects. The guitars were tuned down to Drop D lending a darker tone to their songs. The usual power chords were replaced with more open sounding octaves. The lyrics weren’t about hating girls because they broke up with you; they were about wandering through your own dreams to escape the harsh realities of waking life. My friends and I were all sold.
Soon after, it was announced that Armor For Sleep had signed to the Albany-based record label, Equal Vision Records. I still like to tell myself that I was there when Armor For Sleep got discovered. I picked up the Equal Vision 2003 Spring Sampler, Doing It For The Kids, and there was “Dream to Make Believe,” one of those same songs I had heard at Saratoga Winners the previous year. Their debut record was released later that summer and it spent a solid year locked into the six-disc CD changer in my parents’ minivan.
Albany-based Equal Vision Records 2003 sampler featuring Armor for Sleep
By the time their sophomore record, What To Do When You Are Dead, came out in 2005, I had largely moved on to heavier music. The likes of Norma Jean, Underoath and Every Time I Die were now living in that 6-disc CD changer (things move mighty fast when you’re a teenager), but I still had a place in my heart for anything Armor For Sleep was doing. The screamed chorus and bridge of “Stay On The Ground” were right in line with my new music taste and the riffing in both “The Truth About Heaven” and “The More You Talk, The Less I Hear” demonstrated a big leap forward as songwriters.
What To Do When You Are Dead ended up selling more than 200,000 copies and climbed as high as 101 on the Billboard 200 chart. The success of the album led to the band signing with Sire Records, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group on April 10, 2006. Four years after that show opening for Midtown in the dingy Saratoga Winners, Armor For Sleep had made it.
Fast forward to the present; it’s time for the 20th anniversary tour for What To Do When You Are Dead. Armor For Sleep will be back in the Capital Region with support from Boys Night Out, the Canadian-scene stalwarts whose 2003 record, Make Yourself Sick, was a huge favorite, and HelloGoodbye, whose song “Shimmy Shimmy Quarter Turn” was a big deal during senior year. Step into the time capsule and join Armor For Sleep to celebrate their landmark album’s anniversary at Empire Live on April 6, 2025.
For tickets and more information, visit https://empirelivealbany.com/