Oct 4

Oct 4 Show Review: Angels & Airwaves Bring Lifeforms To Life in San Francisco

Angels & Airwaves
w/ Bad Suns, 1990nowhere
The Warfield
San Francisco, CA
September 30th, 2021

Photos and review by Jared Stossel

The last time I saw Angels & Airwaves was probably in 2013, at a festival in the San Francisco Bay Area. The time before that was on the Vans Warped Tour in 2008. Bottom line: I’d never actually seen an Angels & Airwaves show, merely a festival performance. Both of those festival shows were very well done, but I always find that there’s something special about seeing a band when it’s just them, when they’re the only ones in the spotlight for that evening.

Just a few days after releasing their highly anticipated sixth studio album, Angels & Airwaves (the brain child of former Blink-182 guitarist/vocalist Tom DeLonge) brought their “Lifeforms” headlining tour to San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre. The show was kicked off with solidly performed opening sets by up-and-coming alternative rock acts 1990nowhere and Bad Suns. While Bad Suns was the more seasoned of the two opening bands, both performed especially well and set a great tone heading into Angels & Airwaves’ set.

Around 9:40 PM, the band took the stage as it became bathed in space-age lighting (fitting for any project that DeLonge has his hands on), launching straight into three tracks from Lifeforms: “Kiss & Tell”, “Timebomb”, and “Euphoria”. This was soon followed by “Surrender”, a fan-favorite track from LOVE: Part 2, and “The Adventure”, a track from their first album that I contend to be one of the greatest songs of all time. Hearing it performed live is indescribable. After an amusing anecdote about how the next song was actually intended to be used in a Shrek film, the band dove into “Everything’s Magic”, one of their best tracks and a sure highlight of the evening.

One thing that threw me off about this show was how quiet it got in between songs. The Warfield was pretty full, but no one was chattering in between tracks as the band switched guitars or took a sip of water. The audience hung onto every word that DeLonge spoke, every dick joke (yes, he still has a few), every story, every question he posed to the audience. This worked well in the band’s favor, as Angels & Airwaves are a very story-driven band. DeLonge introduced the song “Tunnels”, a track from their The Dream Walker album, with a story about how it was created in the midst of his father’s passing. That moment wouldn’t have worked if everyone in the theater was chatting incessantly, and it made for something incredibly special.

Other highlights included performances of We Don’t Need To Whisper’s “Start The Machine” and I-Empire’s “Rite of Spring”, two tracks that haven’t been present in the band’s live catalogue since the early 2000s. The show was brought to a close a little over an hour later with “Heaven”, the closing track from I-Empire, a song that explores the possibility of what happens after we leave this world. Angels & Airwaves is a band that is all about exploration, whether it’s focusing on DeLonge’s search for life in the universe, or pondering questions about our eventuality and existence, it’s a musical vessel for safely exploring these topics. As long as people keep asking questions, and as long as people still have an interest in what we’re doing here on this planet, Angels & Airwaves will still be performing incredible shows, and people will still keep coming to them.

Angels & Airwaves Set List
Kiss & Tell
Timebomb
Euphoria
Surrender
The Adventure
Everything’s Magic
It Hurts
Tunnels
Paralyzed
Rebel Girl
The Wolfpack
Start The Machine
Rite of Spring
The War
Heaven