AFI returns to New York City in an unforgettable night of mayhem.
Words by Paulina Subia | Sep 18, 2025
At a particularly chaotic moment during AFI’s performance at New York’s Brooklyn Paramount — bodies flailing through the air, multiple pits circling in motion, punches being thrown — Davey Havok crouches down onto an amp, mid-song, to survey the madness. “Is everything fucked?” he asks, a slight tease in his voice and a mix of bewilderment overtaking his face. It snaps him out of his trance for just a moment, before he seamlessly continues belting “Beautiful Thieves.”
In light of the transformation AFI has undergone for their new album, Silver Bleeds The Black Sun…, to take its full form, Havok has reiterated the sentiment that this record feels closest to who the band truly are, at their core. The Gothic flair has always been there, lurking in the grinding thrash of their hardcore beginnings, and in their more ‘mainstream’ moments, too (it doesn’t get more Goth than singing “Just Like Heaven” to Robert Smith himself on an MTV tribute show). On Wednesday night, fans (both new and veteran) flooded downtown Brooklyn. They have remained the backbone of the band’s many iterations over the last three decades, comprised of some of rock’s most intense and ravenous followers.
The haunting opening notes of “Miseria Cantare – The Beginning” allow the crowd to chant in anticipation: “Love your hate / Your fate lost / You are now one of us.” The band slowly emerges from a magenta-hued haze, black-clad and stone-faced, before launching into the euphoric “Girl’s Not Grey.” Like an electric shock, the crowd surges to life, overtaking the floor and turning it into one massive pit. The slanted ground of the venue lends itself to the mayhem; inadvertently caught in the crossfire, one can practically feel their feet being lifted off the ground, their limbs grasping for balance. Havok immediately assumes his role as the ringleader. A natural frontman, his signature theatrical presence commands attention, as does his new look of wildly curly hair with thin braids trailing behind, a moustached face and blacked-out arm tattoos. Still ever-evolving, Havok proves that AFI’s allure comes not from consistency, but from versatility.
“Love Like Winter” sees Havok wrestle with his mic stand, throwing it into the air and spinning himself around. He fashions his own tornado one minute and poses on the amplifiers the next, always poised for a dramatic moment. Newcomers, including “Holy Visions” and “Nooneunderground” are softer moments of the night, not garnering quite the same level of frenetic energy as their old material. Not that AFI are phased. Their collective ability to oscillate from old-fashioned hardcore, to Gothic croons and new wave dance tunes, is central to what makes them so fascinating. You never know where they will turn next, but that mystery is half the fun.
Glaringly absent from the night’s set is AFI’s biggest hit, “Miss Murder”, but understandably so. Instead, New York is blessed with a night of deep cuts from their vault, certain to stir the audience into rapture. “File 13” produces a bone-crushing crowd surge, fists pumping and fingers pointing in sync with the infectious shout of, “Throw! me! away!” Havok returns the energy, going on about the band’s love of a New York crowd — “It sounds insincere,” he says, “but it’s not insincere,” — before “Dancing Through Sunday”, the most pleasant surprise of the night, slices through the sincerity with its upbeat melancholy. Moments like these, along with the likes of “A Single Second” and “The Days of the Phoenix”, are performed with total abandon. They serve as nods to the early days, but are near-perfect live, a testament to AFI’s capture of a timeless sound.
A man in the crowd who’d followed them from Boston claims that this night outweighs the rest. “He’s in top form tonight,” he says of Havok, matter-of-factly. In perfect timing, Havok proceeds to climb onto the barricade midway through “I Hope You Suffer.” Barely balancing on the edge, wrapping the mic cord around himself, he looks out on the crowd with a determined glare. “I’ve seen my darkest days,” he sings, “You gave each one to me.” With all the venom in the song released in a cathartic scream from every person in the venue, it is a beautiful moment, a peak of emotion that AFI poured into the night.
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