Fast forward over twenty-five years later and the album has been christened a cornerstone for the Midwest emo genre, trickling down from radio stations to Internet music forums, helped along by positive reviews. Now in 2026, the college kids are all grown up, with four LPs under their belt, and currently touring ‘LP4’, a twinkling introspective with overarching themes and that same gut-wrenching honesty that can be found in the students that made ‘LP1’.
We find ourselves in Leeds O2 Academy, where the air conditioning struggles against the throng of fans pouring in. There is the vague buzz of Ibiza Classics from Millennium Square sitting snugly outside, and emo t-shirts blur with bedazzled razers as they make their pilgrimage up the sloping hill to the venue. It feels fitting for the band to be here in Leeds tonight, the founding fathers of a genre at the epicentre of a blossoming UK emo scene, which most likely wouldn’t exist without this band.
Kicking off the night is Marconi Union, a Manchester-based ambient project founded in the walls of a local record shop. An elusive band that has shied away from most press offered their way, they are somewhat obscured by the laptops and keyboard stands in front of them, opening the set with a declaration of surprise at the audience’s enthusiastic reaction. It’s a sprawling set, and the perfect anecdote to the sticky weather outside – it washes over the sun-battered audience like a cool breeze, soothing slightly frazzled heads. At one point, an audience member on the barrier lays his head on the cool metal of the barrier, eyes shut as he bathes in twinkling ambience.
As foreheads glisten in the heat, American Football step out dead on nine, to excited roars. The set follows almost a reverse chronological narrative, from the newest record ‘LP4’ winding its way down to ‘LP1’. A female vocalist joins them to provide accompanying vocals in place of the many collaborators that the band have worked with across their discography, from Paramore’s Hayley Williams to emerging shoegaze act Wisp. ‘Wake Her Up’ shines amongst these, the thematic use of water in the song flowing with the dual vocals, intertwining like a shoal of fish.
The most impressive is the technical prowess of the band. For a group that split as a result of ‘half-assing’ the project, the band create texture and intricacies that slot into each other effortlessly. During the opening track ‘Man Overboard’, drummer Steve Lamos barely glances at the drums as he ripples across the kit, in a timing only he can understand. No one is having more fun than them. Lamos’ smile beams over the kit, and that energy is infectious; everyone forgets about the stifling heat for a brief period to dance and hold each other.
Naturally, the closing tracks of the set from 'LP1' get the warmest reception, an album that has had time and room to grow in the hearts of fans young and old – from the emoheads that heard it for the first time all those years ago, to the young teenagers that still resonate with the all too familiar themes of heartbreak and yearning. But the closing track of the set, ‘Bad Moons’, knits all these generations together, the lyrics of “I’ve been so many boys in this trench coat” harking back to the very kids that began this journey, all the way in Illinois.
Kaitlyn Brockley
Images: Kaitlyn Brockley
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