Seriously you guys, if LCG isn't on the AFI payroll I don't know who is. Not two hours after I posted my suspicion about his AFI intentions guess where he took me. To the AFI listening party. I didn't know that was on the agenda when I got in the car that night, I can tell you that. I thought we were just going to wander around town, maybe get something to eat, maybe go to a record store. The usual agenda, you know?
Well I got into the car and the food debate started right on schedule. If I had my way we would always just go through the drive-thru at McDonald's but LCG seems to like "places" that have "servers" and "tables" so a miniature war always erupts whenever someone is hungry. If I had my other way we would always eat Mexican food but he doesn't like Mexican food (the horror) and I can't go to a Mexican restaurant with someone who will get a cheeseburger. If he's going to get a cheeseburger why not just go to McDonald's?
In reality we do have a handful of restaurants on the mutually approved list and when I got in the car I found out it was my turn to pick one of them. "McDonald's?" Shot down, so I chose Chinese food instead. We headed for our most preferred Chinese restaurant, it's the best in town and provided many, many helpings of Al Michaels Kung Pao. Numm-ay! Halfway down University he suddenly mentioned that he needed to stop by the theater a few doors down from the restaurant. Why? Oh, you know why. He wanted to go visit with some folks at the AFI listening party. "Take me home!" He wouldn't and that is how I ended up at the AFI listening party.
Look. I get the fact that LCG's office monitors youth trends because they sell stuff to today's youth. I think it's fantastic that LCG keeps up with modern music so I don't have to. He filters it for me and who could ask for anything more? Oh, I know what I could ask for. I could ask LCG to drop me off at home (or never pick me up in the first place) when he wants to go chat with people selling AFI. They can try to sell me AFI all they want but I'm not buying.
Luckily we visited the folks and went to eat before the album was played. Unfortunately, we finished dinner before the album finished and when we were walking past the theater we were lured in by what sounded like Cutting Crew. LCG has been trying to convince me for years that AFI wants to be The Misfits and I should therefore want to be an AFI listener. So what was going on with the keyboards?
We were sucked back into the theater and had to lean against the bar to listen to the last half of the album. He thought that the Cutting Crew sound might be a fluke. It wasn't. A song or two later they sounded like a Dead Or Alive cover band and I wanted to know why he kept trying to peddle AFI to me. "I don't know. Man. They are going to have to tour with a keyboard player." We asked around and found out that half of the album sounded like Misfits AFI and the other half sounded like we're ready for radio play AFI.
That isn't good because I've noticed that these days the bands getting radio play sound like all the stuff I didn't like about the eighties. (Franz Ferdinand, I am looking squarely at you and glaring.) After the album was over one of the guys hosting the event said to the large crowd of kids, "So! What did you think?" There was a distinct pause before they cheered (out of obligation, it sounded like) and LCG said, "Oh, that isn't good for AFI."
At least we got to see the video for the first single. I still think that song is pretty good but the video was not for me. It's like, the lead singer is sitting at a vanity table and singing and the band is nearby rocking. Stop fussing with the mirror and go rock with the band! Seriously. And that single sounds like the only rocker on the album so his window of opportunity is small. Now I really don't want to go see AFI. If I want to wallow in bad eighties music I'm sure I have some records that would fit the bill.