American Football Was Always Meant to Turn Twenty-Five
May 22, 2025 - Seattle, Washington
Midwest emo doesn’t strictly have to be performed in the heart of America. In fact, American Football’s 25th anniversary tour for their first EP has taken the band across the globe, from Taiwan and Japan back to stateside. The first stop on American Football’s 25th anniversary EP tour back in their home country was in Seattle, Washington, approximately 2,100 miles away from the house in Urbana, Illinois, featured on the EP’s cover. Many associate emo music with the pop punk bands of the early 2000’s; your emo trinity of My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, and Panic! At the Disco. But American Football represents a more laid back, yet still heart-wrenching, tear jerking, mom-you-don’t-understand-me, version of emo music.
American Football performs at Neptune Theatre. Photo by Megan Lorich.
This was a fact that I, and a random concert goer named Elliott, ruminated over as we waited for American Football to take the stage. Both of us had opted for the Neptune Theatre’s balcony rather than crowding in the pit. After all, who in their right mind is going to attempt to mosh to a song like “The One With the Wulitzer?” The easy-going nature of American Football can even be heard in the concert’s pre-show music, with tracks from Cocteau Twins, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, and the High Llamas pumping up the audience before the band hit the stage, just to name a few artists. While these musicians likely influenced American Football, their discography likely isn’t at the top of the audience’s playlists. In fact, Elliott and I spent our time discussing hyperpop, Pierce the Veil, and hardcore shows, none of which were played as the audience eagerly awaited for American Football.
But sure enough, the band came out on stage, progressing through the first American Football LP, known by fans as LP 1, at a languid pace. I’ll cut to the chase, American Football did not open their set with “Never Meant,” their most well known song. “Never Meant” has seen an odd sort of resurgence thanks to TikTok, with the opening guitar riff oftentimes being used as a placeholder or punchline for any sort of meme involving midwest emo. Instead, the show was kicked off with “Five Silent Miles,” a track off of the three track American Football EP released back in 1998. This prelude was then followed by the entirety of the American Football LP, with “Never Meant” still being left off the set for now.
On top of not sounding like “stereotypical emo,” American Football is composed of instruments you wouldn’t commonly find in any rock band. Drummer Steve Lamos not only rocks out on percussion, but turns away from his kit ever so often to pick up his trumpet and play some of the most iconic hooks on American Football’s tracks. Each time Lamos moved away from his kit and began to play the horn, the audience went absolutely wild for a good five seconds before leaning back and listening to him play. Lead singer and frontman, Mike Kinsella, would later comment on this when he finally began to talk halfway through the show. “None of you are looking at me, you’re all looking at Steve!” he said, clearly amused and happy with the attention Lamos was receiving. But the trumpet isn’t the only odd instrument gracing the Neptune Theatre’s stage. Back against the wall, regaled in the same spot a drum kit typically would be, is a vibraphone. The twinkling sounds of the instrument are practically impossible to make out throughout the show, but the atmosphere of the songs would be entirely different if it was missing.
The American Football LP concludes and the titular band walks off the stage. Throughout the course of the show, projections of the American Football House (704 W. High St, Urbana, Illinois) have been floating around behind the band. We have only seen the outside, different angles of the familiar and symbolic building on display for the audience. But slowly, we begin to walk inside. The audience screams as the camera pans over the house’s floors, walls, windows, and doors, before finally laying to rest and standing still. This is the signal for American Football to come back on stage, progressing into a pseudo-encore that consists of a few popular tracks off of both LP 2 and LP 3.
American Football performs Uncomfortably Numb with Justine
This is when Mike Kinsella (not to be confused with brother and fellow American Footballer Nate Kinsella) speaks for the first time during the show. He makes the aforementioned comment about Lamos and brings a woman named Justine to the stage after the band performs” Where Are We Now?,” “My Instincts Are the Enemy,” and “Born to Lose.” Justine has been brought to the stage to help the band perform one of its most famous songs – “Uncomfortably Numb.” The original version of the track features Hayley Williams of Paramore fame dueting alongside Mike Kinsella. Once finished, Justine remains on stage to help with “Every Wave to Ever Rise” before departing. American Football plays one last LP 3 track, “Doom in Full Bloom,” before concluding the first performance on this leg of their tour with the song everyone has been waiting for.
I’m not sure when the Neptune Theatre’s audience became so rowdy, but I know that the thrumming vibrations of the crowd’s anticipation for “Never Meant” is certainly a contributing factor. People are heckling. The one guy that keeps blowing vape smoke into the air in the pit, which I have a clear view of from the Mezzanine, is puffing smoke more rapidly. Someone has begun a mosh pit, the very thing Elliott and I figured someone would attempt at some point during the concert despite American Football being the most un-two-steppable emo band in existence. And the opening riff of “Never Meant” plays.
Everyone rocks back and forth in their seats up in the mezzanine, a two-step that simply involves swinging your torso slightly forwards and backwards. The floor is filled with phones capturing the song and for the first time, I can distinctly hear people humming along. There were likely a few voices singing along during “Uncomfortably Numb,” but “Never Meant” seems to have awakened the whole audience. The song concludes. The magic fades. And American Football walks off the stage.
It’s technically been over twenty-five years since LP 1 was released, but this tour and American Football’s live rendition of “Never Meant” is proof why the album has remained such a cult classic for a quarter of a century. Unlike the title of the band’s most popular song, it seems that American Football was always meant to last this long.
