Words by Grey
Pix by Sarah Gilpin Photography
I want to start by painting a picture from my childhood. It’s 2012, I’m about 8 or 9 years old and sitting outside in the sweltering Malaysian heat during recess watching a friend play Five Nights at Freddy’s on his phone. Being a child I was of course curious about it, so when I went home and negotiated some computer time with my mom – after having eaten lunch and done my homework – I rushed onto YouTube to do some research about this Fnaf. The first few results are, of course, gameplay, Mark-“king of fnaf”-iplier is front and centre, game theory is soon after trying to explain the “lore” of the game, but then there’s something odd in the results. A song from a channel I didn’t recognise, a certain Living Tombstone. Fast-forward about a decade or so I’m now an adult, I’m with my girlfriend, and I’m singing at the top of my lungs with a crowd of colourful characters to the song, Five Nights at Freddy’s… but I’m getting ahead of myself, how did we get here?
Well, it all started with the owner of this magazine, my boss, so to say, Kris. I was talking to him about writing a few reviews for the magazine, and he mentioned that he had tickets to The Living Tombstone concert happening that night and asked if I wanted to go. My eyes lit the fuck up, “The Living Tombstone?! Hell yeah!!!”. He then mentioned that he had two tickets and that my gf could go too, so I asked if she wanted to come, to which she said “The Living Tombstone?! The inventors of Nostalga?! Hell yeah!!!” and so the both of us were outside in a 100-meter-long line in the freezing Brisbane winter thinking to ourselves “Man we’re not dressed gay enough for this shit.” The line went fairly quick, and getting in took no time at all.
The pre-show more or less started the moment we walked through the doors. Not by any planning of the event staff, no, it was the people. Someone up front was opening up Pokémon card packs on their phone, and everyone was cheering them on. Safe to say the vibes were already immaculate, and it’s only going up from here; I was among my people. I had even made a friend when, while waiting for the show to start, I decided to open up Dragonvale (a mobile game about dragons) which caught the attention of another concert-goer who also plays (and is much, much higher level than me, in my defence I had to reset my progress once or twice).
The actual pre-show started at about 9pm ish, with the opening act being performed by fellow LA band The Similar, and besides a small hiccup in the 3rd act with the drummer, it mostly went on without a hitch. Sam Haft from The Living Tombstone did make a quick appearance to sing Pink Pony Club with the band, which my girlfriend got near immediately, but I was lost having mostly stuck to mostly indie music the past couple of years (I blame my refusal to use TikTok). I should probably mention the set itself was deceptively simple, with just a graphic with the band’s name on the back wall, and a couple of lights, some of which spin. A cool effect was achieved with four rows of lights that were set up in a way to simulate sparklers when they lit up in sequence.
Once the pre-show was over there was a fairly lengthy intermission of about half an hour, with the main act starting at about 10pm. But the wait was worth it as the band came out in bright neon robotic costumes that give a similar vibe to Daft Punk, with their own very unique spin, in particular the famous rounded skulls the band uses as their logo. They didn’t waste time with getting started, and once they did, oh boy did things get going. The venue was packed and I was lucky to have had the pre-show to slightly deafen and enjoy the show without feeling like my ears were bleeding from the volume (did I mention I don’t go to concerts often?). If the vibes were immaculate before, they were beyond pristine now.
The band played a mix of original songs from their albums, mostly Zero_One and their latest album Rust, along with their video game-inspired songs like No Mercy, Stuck Inside and Basics in Behavior. I was particularly surprised, yet happy, when they played Squid Melody. The show was packed full of great music and fun bits in between each set that led up to the next song, usually just talking to the fans to hype them up but a few times was more of a full piece, like for the lead up to No Mercy Rust complains about Zero_One’s overwatch gaming habits and refusal to play a support character (the crux of the song). I must be honest I was a bit lost for a few songs having not listened actively to the band for a good few years, especially with their original songs, but for the songs I did recognise I felt like I was blasted back; back to simpler times where I lay in bed with my second hand Note 3, listening to their songs off YouTube and making sure my phone didn’t turn off or the video would stop. And I have a feeling I can accurately say it was the same, if not something similar, for the rest of the crowd. They say it takes one to know one, and as a person with autism, I have to say you could smell the autism in the room that night, and it was heaven. Especially when the band started their encore act. They had just finished off with their song Die In A Fire and everyone was singing along, and once The Living Tombstone had left the calls for ‘encore’ came immediately afterwards.
It was a couple of agonising minutes before they came back on stage to the roar of the crowd. Yoav, now with the helmet off of his Zero_One costume, talked about starting the band and how it was their fourth time performing live – and first below the equator. He talked about what it took for him to get to where he is and some of the struggles with it. One thing he mentioned was himself having autism (to which there was a large cheer from the audience, myself included) and finding a community through his music, as well as teaming up with Sam, who also has the helmet off from his Rust costume.
The encore act itself was amazing. Starting off with the banger It’s Been So Long, the vibes at this point were hitting peak levels. Everyone was singing along as the band played their most popular songs, following up the opening set with Discord, which started with a fun little bit using a sound many in the audience would be familiar with from a messaging app of the same name. I tried my best to sing along, but unfortunately, I had forgotten most of the words qwq. Next up was My Ordinary Life and the starting bit was playing a tattoo, first playing the theme to Bluey before playing the song. Fun fact, this is the first song Sam and Yoav wrote together and is a constant in my top five – no, three – Living Tombstone songs.
There was a bit of a break after which the band talked about how preforming live had been so far, with Yoav and Sam taking the time to introduce their fellow band members behind the masks, as well as the other staff that worked behind the scenes. Even bringing them onto stage for a selfie with the crowd before they did the final set. Five Nights at Freddy’s, the song that put them on the map; a song Yoav wrote in two weeks after the game came out. A song that put into motion a vast series of events that led us all to this point. This song is significant personally to me because it was with this song I had got into FnaF, and from that I became a furry, found out I’m a little more fruity than the average teenager, and came to accept I’m weird and that’s the worlds’ problem to deal with. This song was my childhood and here I am, 13 ish years later, listening to it being played live. I was singing, I was jumping, and I was having the best night of my life. Words cannot describe the night. By this point I could feel the beat in my chest, the lyrics in my heart, the little autistic child in my head flapping their little arms so hard they could take off, and to think I’m sharing this experience with hundreds of other little weirdos (affectionate) like me, all jumping, all singing…
I could go to other concerts that probably have bigger budgets, bigger venues, more elaborate sets, and a larger crowd but none of them – not a single one – can beat the vibes of this concert for me. The experience, the memories, the nostalgia. Twenty-two long years of living on this plutonic rock we call Earth, and I’d do it all again just so I can once again end up here singing Five Nights at Freddy’s with hundreds of other zoomers, as it’s performed live on a late Friday night in Brisbane.
