Sometimes you don’t know how much a band means to you until you’re finally seeing them live, dancing with them like you dreamed of when you stumbled across them at 15.
It’s not a lie to say I chose Loughborough University because Against The Current played Nottingham Rock City on their last trip across the pond in 2023. So obviously there wasn’t a minute’s hesitation when tickets went on sale for the Till Death & Back tour in May.
My hesitation came a bit later. Initially when I realised that booking a hotel in Leeds on Halloween night was going to be a massive pain in the bum. Then as I found myself vaguely unbothered by the singles the band released earlier this year. And finally this week, when my voice never came back after Halloween Hey Ewe, and I started to wonder whether I really liked this band enough to bother.
It took about ten seconds to answer that question. As soon as Chrissy Costanza bounced onto the stage, all I could think was “Oh my God, she’s real.” When somebody’s only existed in your ears and on your computer home screen for the last four years, it’s absolutely surreal for them to suddenly be singing just metres in front of your face.
Till Death & Back, the band’s first full-length album in eight years, dropped two days ago and immediately made it clear that my apathy towards the singles was purely on me. The album slaps. Explosive opener Fortune Favors The Brave began the show and what I was lacking in terms of lyrics, I made up for in enthusiasm. Dead Man Walking, my favourite of the singles, followed, before Chrissy took a moment to welcome us and promise a setlist packed with fan favourites, old and new.
Against The Current have followed a strange path: TD&B is their first full project since 2021 EP fever, but the third album of a career reaching back to 2011, when they broke through as one of the original YouTube cover bands. Their League of Legends breakout hit, Legends Never Die, recently turned 9 years old. All this despite the lead singer being just 31.
So the crowd covered a wider age range than one might have expected, and when the band launched into 2015’s Talk, they were met with screams. I had to reach fairly deep to find the lyrics, but they were there, and I guess they always will be. Same for again&again – I didn’t even know I knew the bridge, but the music drew it out of me.
We whipped through songs in a euphoric haze, befitting the energy with which Chrissy danced around the stage. My voice checked out somewhere between Blood Like Gasoline and Voices, though of course I carried on yelling. I turned to my friend and said “this one’s my favourite” three times in four songs. that won’t save us was one of those; one of those songs which is so deeply ingrained in me that I didn’t even pause to remember which one it was until I’d ripped through every word of the opening verse.
Fittingly for my first time in Leeds, the show had a distinct Yorkshire flavour – from the chants of “YORKSHIRE, YORKSHIRE”, to an impromptu Sweet Caroline, to Chrissy’s admission that her first act on landing in the UK was purchasing a 240-pack of Yorkshire Tea. When she asked us for alternative brands, I didn’t have the voice or the nerve to shout TETLEY.
The band left the stage with three songs still in their back pocket, and didn’t keep us waiting for too long for the opening notes of Legends Never Die. They brought the curtain down with weapon, which is half an incredible song, half an emotionally charged rallying cry – and cry I did.
On Halloween 2026, my niche American rock band that nobody’s ever heard of finally became real. I regret the headbanging today, but I’ll remember the night forever.
