I was lucky enough to be the only photographer / reviewer at the local stop of "The Economy Sucks!....Let's Party!" tour in my city. At this stop it included Anti-Flag, Aiden, Cancer Bats, and Star Fucking Hipsters. Each band was somewhat in a different genre, but all complimented each other.

Anti-Flag is an American punk rock band out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They're well known for their outspoken views on the American government, and most recently their criticisms of the government Bailouts. The band currently has four members, Justin Sane (Guitar/Vox), Chris 2 (Bass/Vox), Chris Head (Guitar), and Pat Thetic (Drums).

Anti-Flag opened with 'Press Corpse' which is off their 2006 album. The crowd was engulfed with the bands energy and immediately began moshing and crowd-surfing, despite the huge signs everywhere at the venue that threatened ejection if one participated in such activities. I was dodging security guards and people all over in the tiny pit. Anti-Flag then moved onto the song 'Sodom, Gomorrah, Washington D.C.' which is off their newest album. The fans seemed to enjoy this as much as the last song. It was awesome to see how devoted some of these fans were to get up close to the band. One fan who was crowd-surfing during this song and somehow managed to rip a set-list right off on of the monitor speakers on stage.


The third song on the set was a real classic that I have personally liked for a long time called 'Turncoat.' Everyone at the show seemed to know the lyrics off by heart and were screaming it out with the band.


Something I really enjoy about shows like this is that despite all of the brutal moshing, crowd-surfing and all that crazy stuff, everyone is there supporting each other. People were getting knocked down during all of this, but everyone was helping each other and picking them back up. I've been to many punk shows, and not many are all supportive of each other. The coolest thing I saw was towards the end of the show, Neltie, Anti-Flags awesome tour manager jumped into the pit between the barricade and stage. I saw her helping grab some of the crowd surfers to safety which was awesome, in my opinion. You don't often see the tour manager jumping in there like that usually!

If you guys are lucky enough to have Anti-Flag come through where you live, make sure you go out and check them out. They're completely worth your time.