At The Drive-In at Terminal 5 (March 22, 2017)

Last year At The Drive-In announced they were once again reuniting (sans founding member Jim Ward) for a bunch of tour dates and even some new music. The tour dates included a long-awaited stop in New York, which they skipped during their 2012 reunion (although we caught them at Lollapalooza). They pegged a June show at Terminal 5, but had to cancel the show after doors were already open because singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala was sick. It looked like New Yorkers were going to have to wait some more to see the ATDI boys.

Here we are in 2017 and the band will release in•ter a•li•a, their first album in 17 years (via Rise Records). With the announcement came more show dates, including a March 22 Terminal 5 makeup for New York. The show featured support from Mexican garage-rockers Le Butcherettes, who are longtime associates with Omar Rodriguez-Lopez.

New songs were shared – and sounded good – but as awesome as it is that we are getting new music from At The Drive-In, let’s be real, fans wanted all the oldies. And boy did they deliver the hits. Most of the set was lifted from their 2000 breakthrough Relationship of Command and the fans in general admission, who were gleefully moshing into one another, seemed to to be speaking for everyone with how truly crowd-pleasing the set was.

Although it would have been great to see Ward playing with them, his replacement, Keeley Davis, filled in just fine. Bixler-Zavala moved around the stage like a madman, constantly finding items on stage to jump from, and whipping his microphone cable like a jumprope (it even found itself wrapped around me during my first song in the photo pit). In 2012 Rodriguez-Lopez seemed a bit disinterested in the reunion, but he was all in this time around, and it was night and day. The group harnessed a new lease of life, and delivered a lively set that surely made up for the cancellation of the last show (which Bixler-Zavala profusely apologized for).

It’s exciting to say that this is a start of a new chapter for the band. Believe it or not, come May, we will have a brand new At The Drive In album to blast real loud over the summer. But for now, enjoy some photos from their Terminal 5 performance, as well as the setlist.

At The Drive-In Setlist:

1. Arcarsenal
2. Pattern Against User
3. Sleepwalk Capsules
4. Metronome Arthritis
5. Incurably Innocent
6. Invalid Litter Dept.
7. Enfilade
8. Cosmonaut
9. Quarantined
10. Napoleon Solo
11. Catacombs

Encore:

12. Governed By Contagions
13. One Armed Scissor

Le Butcherettes: