Four hours before the doors opened, a line two bus lengths long snaked its way from underneath the safe haven of the Convention Center facade. Freshly spiked purple hair and manicured mohawks fell limp as the rain poured down in torrential showers. As the doors were opening, the line had grown all the way to the lobby of the Holiday Inn Select.

AFI’s performance was unlike many of the shows held at the Convention Center. A spirit of youth was in the air. It was evident from the lack of cars and the desolate bar that probably half the crowd were still working on their learner’s permits. They were young and idealistic, and all hoping to get close enough to the shimmer of Davey Havok’s hopelessly depressed raven locks.

Supporting act Static Lullaby was just a bunch of skinny white kids screaming to get out of the bipolar musical shell of retardation befitting a worthless label as screamo. The other band, Coheed and Cambria, were fronted by a lead singer sporting a ludicrously magnificent white man mushroom and a voice eerily similar to Cedric Zavala of the Mars Volta.

But AFI was my calling. The rest of the others close enough to get floor seat felt the same way.

I waited in one of the many empty seats behind the gate leading to the floor and overheard the disgust and surprise of a group of adolescents upset at the fact that there were seats.

“That’s so horrible, there’s seats,” he exclaimed. “Yeah, that sucks!” the girls of the group complained. I was amused, but it was a really unfortunate comment. The sweating and pushing alpha male antagonism of the mosh pit bordering on sexual harassment were on full display here.

The crowd was predominately new to the AFI phenomenon that has been metamorphosing itself for the last 10 years from humble, but impassioned East Bay hardcore roots.

Jade Puget shimmered in his half Beach Boys half new wave hair cut as he ripped through cuts mostly off of AFI’s most recently successful albums, “Sailing the Black Sails” and “Songs of Sorrow”.

Havok provided the drama. Infused with a synergistic melancholy and panic, he raced around the stage belting chants galore in competition with the echoing backup of the crowd. I was hoping for more, but I only saw one signature Havok high kick, a round house at that.

Still, I was glad that at least for a night I got to see AFI for who they really were, through the eyes of the children, who were frenetic, innocent, impressionable, and defiantly uncaring. Hopefully, they will carry this experience with them for a lifetime and not peel the new sticker off their car once the buzz has died down.