Jan 13

Jan 13 Show Review, Photos: The Sound of Animals Fighting Kick Off Tour in San Francisco

The Sound of Animals Fighting
w/ Hail The Sun, Concrete Castles, Record Setter
The Regency Ballroom
San Francisco, CA
January 6th, 2023

Photos and review by Jared Stossel

Weird is good. Weird makes things unique and interesting, keeps you guessing and asking questions, The Sound of Animals Fighting is a weird band, and this is good. For an hour and a half on a cloudy Friday night in San Francisco, I watched the coveted supergroup take the stage for an intrinsically distinctive tour kickoff, their first in well over a decade. With a lineup that has constantly rotated over the years, the key members that have remained come from rock band Rx Bandits and vocalist Anthony Green, the frontman for various acts like L.S. Dunes, Circa Survive, and Saosin. Nearly ten people fill the stage at any given time, and the show is never boring. Green swings around the stage with his usual swagger, this time clutching an orange lightbulb in his palm as he rotates between soaring melodies and banshee-like screaming.

The show featured a wide variety of openers, kicking off with Record Setter, a band that lives within the world of rock but I can only describe as “genre-less”. Bands like this are becoming more and more frequent. Despite their commonality, all of them sound different (hence the term “genre-less”). A nearly half-hour opening set found the band jumping between a wide variety of sounds that made for an interesting kickoff to the evening’s festivities. Concrete Castles followed with a high-energy performance that set them apart from every act on the bill, transitioning between powering guitar riffs and commanding vocal runs that would toe the line between pop and hard rock. Their energy was infectious, with every member utilizing the stage as a backdrop in which they brought their songs to life. Main support came from Northern California favorites Hail The Sun, a four-piece post-hardcore act that has made a name for themselves over the last decade. Treading the line between progressive rock and technical post-hardcore, the Chico natives blasted through an explosive set that brought forth some of their most revered tracks. Vocalist Donovan Melero owns the performance space, swinging the entire microphone stand above his head as the band spearheads mechanically crafted riffs and time-changes with ease.

By the time The Sound of Animals Fighting takes the stage, neon lights have the stage aglow as the somber opening track, “Wolf”, signals the beginning of what’s to come. It should be noted that while Green is the “frontman” of the group, there are four different vocalists in the band. I’m honestly not sure if I saw all four of them on stage at the same time, but it’s a sight to behold. No one ever feels like they’re overpowering one another, as they make their way through singing, screaming, and even spoken word verses. No two songs from The Sounds of Animals Fighting are exactly the same, and that’s what makes them such a unique band. Throughout the nineteen song setlist, I never once felt like I was listening to the same thing twice. While the crowd loved everything that the supergroup brought forth, the reactions were over the top during the performance of the four-act structure that came from the band’s 2005 debut, Tiger and the Duke.

Experimental rock can be met with apprehension, but when the right people put together the right kind of group, weird and magical things can happen when the lights go down and the amplifiers are turned on. The Sound of Animals Fighting, from their name to their sound, is a distinctive supergroup, and their tour kickoff in San Francisco was a masterclass in how to embrace the beauty of experimental rock music.

The tour continues tonight at The Studio at The Factory in Dallas, TX. Tickets for tonight and all other dates can be found here.

The Sound of Animals Fighting Set List
Wolf
Apeshit
Act I: Chasing Suns
Act II: All Is Ash or the Light Shining Through It
I, The Swan
This Heat
My Horse Must Lose
The Ocean and the Sun
Another Leather Lung
Cellophane
On The Occasion of Wet Snow
Blessings Be Yours Mister V
The Heretic
Act III: Modulate Back to the Tonic
Act IV: You Don’t Need a Witness

Encore:
The Heraldic Beak of the Manufacturer’s Medallion
Skullflower
Stockhausen, es ist Ihr Gehirn, das ich suche
Sharon Tate, Despite Everything