Alien Ant Farm at Corporation

Despite the high likelihood that the majority of tonight’s audience were pubescent, acne-ridden teens during Alien Ant Farm’s early-noughties heyday, the decade and a half that has since passed clearly hasn’t lessened Sheffield’s affections for the Californian quartet’s irresistible pop-rock charms. In recognition of ANThology’s fifteenth anniversary, this tour has seen AAF perform their major label debut record in its entirety at a number of sold-out shows across the country; and you’d be hard-pressed to attend a Corporation gig as jubilant and joyous as this one all year. AAF’s opening one-two of ‘Courage’ and the euphoric ‘Movies’ whips the crowd into a frenzy of new millennium, nostalgic revelry. Unsurprisingly, this enthusiasm does diminish during the album’s lesser-known songs – ‘Stranded and Wish’, for example – but to call this South Yorkshire appearance anything other than an absolute triumph, would be utterly untrue. Welcome renditions of ‘Glow and These Days’ – the pick of the bunch from 2003’s overlooked follow-up truANT – only intensify the sense of anticipation ahead of the show’s finale, where the band have wisely saved their famed Michael Jackson cover ‘Smooth Criminal’ for last – and what an elated, rapturous finale it is. Every grinning, exultant individual in the room will have left tonight’s venue quietly hoping that AAF return to our shores a little sooner than last time. There’s life in the old ant yet.

Words: Chris Lord