Date: June 7th, 2023

AJJ played in Delaware for the first time at Dogfish Head Brewings and Eats in Rehoboth Beach last night to a packed restaurant. The band and Dogfish Head collaborated on a limited-edition beer called Infinity Time, a companion piece if you will, to their new album Disposable Everything, released via Hopeless Records.

It’s been 15 years since I last saw AJJ (Andrew Jackson Jihad at the time) on the Asian Man Records tour with the Queers, Bomb the Music Industry, Kepi Ghoulie and others. Safe to say, things have changed since then since Jeff Rosenstock from Bomb the Music Industry is extremely popular, as well as AJJ. Droves of punkers and outcasts (my kind) visited Dogfish Head Brewings and Eats to see the band perform and it was the most packed I’ve seen that place to date. Canadian smokey air wasn’t going to stop people from going out and enjoying some live music, on a Wednesday night no less.

Before AJJ took the stage, earlier in the afternoon, they had a fireside chat at the Dogfish Inn in Lewes where they were asked questions from fans, signed posters and merch. Then a little after 9pm, they hit the stage to play for 90 minutes. They started things off with their opening track off the new album called “Strawberry (Probably).” The song ends with Sean singing over and over, “everything is free now.” Funny enough, so was this show! In the fireside chat, the band wanted to do something strawberry with the beer can release, but Dogfish Head did something with strawberry recently.

Other songs that they played that night included “Death Machine,” “Cody’s Theme,” “Hate Song For Brains,” and a crowd favorite “Body Terror Song.” At some point, the rest of the band left the stage for a few minutes and Sean did a few songs by himself including a cover of Roger Miller’s “Oo-De-Lally” from Robin Hood. The Disney fan in me loved that one. The song that is still popular today is from their 2007 release off Asian Man Records and that’s “Brave as a Noun.” I have to admit, it’s still my favorite from them but there’s a lot of new songs off the new album I enjoy as well like “The Baby Panda” and “Dissonance.” Those were also played as well.

The band finished up with “Big Bird” and the crowd immediately lined up at the merch table to buy stuff and talk to the band afterwards. I had a fun time at the show and it was nice to see something resembling punk down in the Rehoboth Beach area, which is kind of rare to see. AJJ is more than campfire folk punk these days, since their sound has matured into a different direction. Obviously for the right band and price (free), people will come out to see a band perform. It seemed like a lot of people weren’t from the area, which makes sense since it’s the “on-season” in Slower Lower Delaware. It could also just be fans of AJJ wanted to see them play a longer set and for free too.

AJJ is on tour now, playing select cities with Oceanator and Glade, Open Mike Eagle, Sad Park and Foot Ox. Go out and enjoy some tunes, buy some merch and support the band!

Here are some photos, I’ll have more on SkaPunkPhotos.com this week.