Alien Ant Farm Show Review
Chicago : 07.19.2003
Alien Ant Farm Truimphantly Returns
The first time I was supposed to see Alien Ant Farm was at a radio show in Indianapolis, Indiana with Hoobastank and Incubus. That was Memorial Day weekend, 2002 (May 27, 2002). Well, we all know about the reason I didn’t see them that day and that has been well documented, so we won’t bore you with a rehash of that or show pictures that make you think of Princess Diana. A sadder and not reported commentary of that event is that it happened shortly after the single “Attitude” was released. Many Alien Ant Farm fans argue that this is the best song off of the ANThology album, but it never received the amount of airplay that “Smooth Criminal” or “Movies” did. The sad truth is that without the summer tour concert ticket giveaway grease, the radio airplay did not come anywhere close to it’s potential. So the song has kind of a cultish status as some people who have heard the song and like it don’t even make the connection to Alien Ant Farm.
At the Metro on this summer evening, Alien Ant Farm performed a tight and magnificent set that featured a large number of songs from the new album, TruANT, which had not been released yet. The crowd seemed very into the new songs as well as the radio singles mentioned above. Dryden Mitchell and Tye Zamora have excellent stage presence as well, if you did not know about Dryden’s movement limitations, you wouldn’t even notice anything was still not quite right physically. Most of the new songs were surprisingly upbeat in tone after what they had been through, you might have expected some anger, sadness or expressions of frustration. There is no self pity or “why me” here, if anything some fans at the show commented that they seemed stronger as a unit now. Pre-ordering advance CD sales were brisk as they were sold with a promise of an after show signing session – it appeared about twenty percent of the crowd took them up on this. Innovative campaigns that add value to new album promotions are a good idea as it boosts first week album sales and gives people incentives to buy the album. In this case, TruANT seems poised for much success if the right singles are released and promoted (I’ll update this story once the album is received with what I think those should be after “These Days”).
Hopefully, Alien Ant Farm will be back soon and we’ll be able to do an interview at that time for our loyal Music Frisk readers. Until then, if you like Alien Ant Farm, be sure to check out Marc and Jon Zamora’s (Tye Zamora’s brothers) band, The Color Red.
Alien Ant Farm Setlist (thank you avid fan at the show Jenny)
01 1000 Days
02 Movies
03 Green Disease
04 Whisper
05 Sticks and Stones
06 These Days
07 Never Meant
08 Attitude
09 Courage
10 Sarah
11 Drifting Apart
12 Rubber Mallet
13 S.S. Recognize
14 Goodbye
15 Smooth Operator
16 Smooth Criminal
