All photos by Julius Aguilar
Seeing a band on the first night of tour is always an interesting experience. Thanks to social media and sites like Setlist.FM, it’s pretty easy to spoil the surprise of what your night will entail.
For example, don’t act like this sentence has never crossed your mind: “Oh cool, guess we should stay until the encore because they play ‘Free Bird.’”
Or what about, “Wow, look at this video! They have pyro during ‘We Are The Champions.’”
Unless you purposely put blinders on to avoid any and all concert spoilers, there’s a pretty good chance you’re going to know what’s coming when you walk through that venue door.
However, that’s not the case on opening night.
Like going to a movie without seeing the trailer, opening night of a tour is a chance to experience something with fresh eyes – or in this case, fresh ears.
Headed in to see Tom DeLonge and his Angels & Airwaves bandmates for the start of their first US tour in over seven years, we really had no clue what to expect.
What songs were they going to play? Would we hear any new music? Was Tom going to play any Blink-182 or Box Car Racer? Would there be aliens on stage?
The answers to those questions, spoiler alert: Yes, yes, yes, and unfortunately no.
Treating fans to over 20 songs new and old spanning DeLonge’s storied musical career, night one with Angels & Airwaves was something this galaxy had never seen – and frankly, that’s just how we like it.
Now, in case you’d like to forgo everything we previously said about not spoiling a concert before you see it live in person, we have compiled photos from Noise contributor Julius Aguilar. To check out his magnificent shots, be sure to look below. Afterward, make sure to grab tickets to see Angels & Airwaves out on tour here.
