Jamie Otsa
As a middle class white boy from a quiet seaside town, you can imagine the hardships and prejudice I faced as a teenager. The world at large just DIDN’T UNDERSTAND. Back in 2001 when I was 15 years old, I went to see The Offspring at the MEN arena in Manchester based solely on my love for my CD single of Pretty Fly For A White Guy. We used to travel to Manchester a lot because most of the more obscure or bigger touring shows would miss Liverpool out, something that is still sadly not much different, despite efforts from myself and others to rectify the situation.
While I waited excitedly through the opening act (no less than A of nu-metal stomper ‘Nothing’ fame, a song which must have sound tracked hundreds if not thousands of dance floor handjobs in the early Noughties) I discovered an American goth-punk band called AFI. Sparking a 4 year obsession that left no stone of teenage agony and shame unturned, I revelled in the despair and misery they pedalled. Here was a band who truly knew what it meant to be one of the less popular kids. Me and my friends went into overdrive, devouring every record they put out, buying all their merch and going to every UK show they played.
We venerated them like heroes – they were living proof that nerdy kids can actually be someone. It’s a testament to how much I loved this band that I can still remember all the lyrics to every song from their 6 or 7 albums and, somewhere at my parent’s house in the loft, is a box with a signed birthday card from them as well as one of the bass player’s plectrums.
Little did I realise at the time that I was at the vanguard of what would come to be known under the dreaded blanket term of Emo. Not the more acceptable mainstream branch of Jimmy Eat World emo, but the sneered at and much maligned bastard-child of My Chemical Romance branch. But you know what? If these kids love their favourite band anywhere near half as much as I loved AFI, then I’m never going to have a bad word to say about them, because I completely get it. We all dressed like twats when we were teenagers too.
