Michael Hann

My night with the worst kind of nostalgia 

Plus: a dose of fun and British psychedelia from Gruff Rhys and Jane Weaver at the Barbican

They were awfully good. And I hated every single moment: American Football at the Roundhouse. (Credit: Martin/@gingerdope) 
issue 21 September 2024

American Football are a band whose legend was formed by the internet: some Illinois college kids who made an album for a little label in 1999, went their separate ways, and in their absence found that a huge number of people had responded to their music. They duly reunited in 2014. They are often identified as emo, the most confounding of all genre names, given it means everything and nothing, but American Football are not of the eyeliner and dyed-hair variety exemplified by My Chemical Romance, nor the angsty pop-punk variant of Weezer or Jimmy Eat World, nor the shouty hardcore punk evolution of the genre’s founders in the 1980s.

There was nothing remotely punky about American Football, who are now middle-aged men, recreating their feelings as teenagers for the benefit of thirtysomethings reliving their own adolescence.

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