Against Me! - The Neptune Theatre, Seattle WA - July 19, 2015

[Gainesville, FL] “Gender is over!” said the lead singer’s t-shirt. I have been mildly obsessed with this band for the last couple years. I haven’t heard a song by them I don’t like but my body flushes with joy for “Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart.”And then I fell into the story about the lead singer’s transgender journey and I googled for some pictures and fell weepily in worship with the lead singer. I guess I expected hardness and bitterness for all her hard times but her face only communicated vulnerability and hope in the face of our sad mean world. You know, writing this, I realize it could be that my love for this band was borne on a day of serous PMS … except! that glow of hope was evident in the whole tone of the show. There’s some people who wear an aura you can see across a room – so maybe Laura Jane Grace is my punk Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Not to mention, I think they’re described as drawing on Bruce Springsteen and, with my secret passion for heartland rock, me not liking gender-bending punkish heartland rock would be weird. Like the first band, and like her google pictures, Laura Jane Grace was unpretentious and just nice. Male-ish skinny pants, a heavy metal style shirt, and fantastic eyeshadow – I was disappointed her long hair covered her face throughout the whole show – as the torch-holder I assume she is for a bunch of kids, I would have liked less hiding but easy for me to say… The only other band member I remember was the crazy guitarist in the mod-ish bowl cut who wore a huge foolish grin the entire time and literally did a metal kick at one point. I don’t hear them as punk – I suppose there’s some influences – theyr’e in my ipod as “folk punk” which is strangely becoming an increasingly prevalent genre – but they sounded pretty much straight classic rock or power pop. Musically, they were frankly less impressive than the other two bands – they sounded same-tone and messy – maybe the venue wasn’t working for them. Laura Jane Grace’s talent was apparent though – she switched guitars for practically every song and the room stopped silent for an acoustic version of “The Ocean.” Maybe a singer/songwriter at the root – truly great voice and lyrics – she almost reminded me of The Mountain Goats (the incredibleness of his live show – not recorded). If there’s any punk in there, it’s anthemic, oi!, Irish. For instance, they started one song and Laura Jane Grace warned the audience that the song was really uplifting and it made her uncomfortable – she laughed and said she supposed it was an “atheist spiritual.” I laughed because, no offense Laura Jane Grace, but the whole set had been pretty uplifting. As evident in a completely entranced fist-pumping singing-every-word-to-every-song crowd.