‘I noticed the band that rewired my mind – I used to be shocked by diva rockers and wild mosh pits’
A One Tree Hill scene soundtracked by AFI (A Fire Inside)’s Prelude 12/21 “rewired my brain” – so their first UK headline gig in nine years at O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire felt like destiny
AFI performing at O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, August 20, 2026(Image: Josephine Best (@josephinexbest Instagram))
I first discovered AFI through the iconic teen drama One Tree Hill (OTH), and the song that got me hooked was Prelude 12/21.
In OTH Season 4, Episode 6 (Where Did You Sleep Last Night), that haunting, atmospheric opening track from AFI’s 2006 album Decemberunderground plays over an intensely dramatic scene. Peyton Sawyer – OTH’s music-obsessed cheerleader who ran her own record label – is dealing with severe trauma and fear after being attacked by a stalker, “Psycho Derek”.
Her real brother, Derek, takes her into a boxing ring to teach her how to fight back. As the marching, rhythmic clapping and eerie vocals of Davey Havok build, Derek screams at her to stop hitting “like a scared little girl”.
Davey Havok performing at O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, August 20, 2026(Image: Josephine Best (@josephinexbest Instagram))
Peyton then violently punches back right as the song hits its emotional peak. It’s so badass it practically rewired my brain (I later became a cheerleader and a boxer).
So when AFI finally returned for their first UK headline date in nine years, and I walked into O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire on August 20, it felt like meeting a band that had already narrated part of my adolescence.. Choir Boy opened, which set the mood perfectly: darkwave sheen and melancholy, like a signpost to AFI’s current gothic/new wave era.
Then Davey Havok arrived and did what he always does: turned rock into theatre. His 2026 look was genuinely shocking – a high-volume fluffy afro with long braided sections and a thick handlebar moustache, a total pivot from the classic flat-ironed gothic hair.
AFI have kept the same four-man lineup since 1998 – frontman Davey Havok, guitarist/keyboardist Jade Puget, bassist Hunter Burgan and drummer Adam Carson, who co-founded the band with Havok(Image: Josephine Best (@josephinexbest Instagram))
The suit jacket didn’t survive long in the heat; as the set ramped up, he stripped down to a tight black sleeveless vest, then threw himself into the crowd and climbed onto the venue’s bar while singing. AFI don’t just play songs.
They perform them with maximum drama – cinematic screams, poetic phrasing, and that sense that every chorus is a scene change. And standing there, sweating in that packed theatre, I kept thinking about Prelude 12/21: the track that first made AFI feel like more than a band.
On Thursday night, they proved it again, as Davey didn’t just stand at the microphone. He threw himself into the audience, climbed on top of the venue’s bar, and used intense, theatrical hand gestures to command the crowd like a true opera diva.
AFI is from Ukiah, California, a small city located in Northern California’s Mendocino County(Image: Josephine Best (@josephinexbest Instagram))
The mosh pits were beautifully wild and chaotic. When the set leaned into the heavier punk catalogue, it levelled up again: the drop in The Days of the Phoenix opened the pit into a full circle rush, while constant waves of crowdsurfers kept security busy at the barrier.
In that tight, historic theatre with limited floor space, the pit didn’t sit politely in one corner; it swallowed the room, turning the whole place into a moving, high-intensity organism.
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