Written and photos by Craig McGreggor
“I felt like the Beatles,” reminisced Aaron Bruno, lead singer, primary song writer and founder of AWOLNATION. He was describing the band’s first night playing at Stubb’s, indoors, in 2012 and hearing the entire crowd sing back the lyrics to their debut single, SAIL. Seven years later, the band is not only playing Stubb’s again on the much larger outdoor stage, but instead to a complete sellout crowd. They are riding high from their recently released and thoroughly recommended third studio album, “Here Come the Runts”. It certainly feels they have carved out their own unique style of music which is hard to quite nail down in the best of ways. Swaying between infectious indie electronic dance beats to in-your-face guitar shredding rock n’ roll (which included brief teases of AC/DC and Metallica during their encore), AWOLNATION lays waste to almost every genre imaginable through a high energy, body flying 90-minute set. There is a point in the life of a band that you can identify that all cylinders and firing, and last night was evident of such. Everyone is having fun from the drummer dressed only in an adult diaper, to Bruno himself bearing farmer overalls, poncho, tattered straw hat and a grizzly beard straight out of a 1970s spaghetti western flick. While the group remained relentless through most of the set, a point of intimate connection occurred during the groups most recent single release, Handyman. We find Aaron Bruno sitting relaxed and crossed legged on the tin roof of Stubb’s office. Positioned to audience’s left flank, the front man serenated the crowd through each heart felt lyric. A perfect reprieve to a rowdy, entertaining, crowd surfing night which ended with a proper roll call of the members and the ADD excusing sing a long, SAIL.
