By Brianna MacMillan

Almost four years after breaking up, local band Affliction is gearing up to hit the stage March 22 for its second reunion show. Affliction performed its first reunion show last year after being voted Band You’d Most Like to See Reunite at the 2012 Worcester Music Awards.

The band won the award again in 2013 and “made a promise to the fans that every year we won, we would do a reunion show,” said singer Jessica Hogan, who said the break up was due to a “falling out of the inner workings of the band.”

Last year’s show was at Tammany Hall, which is now closed, and this year, Affliction will reunite at The Raven in Worcester. “Tammany was home to us,” Hogan said. However, she added, after almost selling out the show last year, the band is excited for an even bigger reunion this year.

This year’s show will feature at least five bands: Mindset X, Scarecrow Hill, Tester and Affliction, along with a surprise band that is to be announced.

Lead guitarist Michael Mariano was excited to talk about the upcoming reunion. He said the reunion will be larger this year, partially because the band had been unsure of how the first reunion would go and if “all of us as a band could work it all out.”

Mariano and Hogan had been working on a side project, playing some Affliction songs, and Mariano said that he felt it was important that he and Hogan stay together and play their old songs. They “vowed to keep those songs alive, in memory of our original bassist [Scott Bever],” Mariano said.

After a successful first reunion and an enormous response from fans, Affliction will be back again. Hogan said she started receiving emails and hearing rumors of a potential second reunion almost immediately after the first show. This year, the band will play a longer set, “pulling out all the old songs we haven’t played in a long time,” Mariano said.

Both Mariano and Hogan said how vital the fans have been in the reunion process, especially the band’s large, dedicated fan group ~ the self-named Affliction Bitches. Led by “head bitches” Tanya Skinner and Nicole Cyr, almost the entire group of more than 50 women is expected to be at the upcoming show.

“They didn’t let us die,” Hogan said. Starting in Hogan’s shed, Affliction has built a legacy for themselves through its songs and the enormous dedication of its fans.

This won’t be the last fans see from Hogan and Mariano, either. Both said they think Affliction members would love to perform on a yearly basis. Mariano also alluded to something new in the works, with a new name and a mix of new and familiar faces. Mariano said that although he can’t give away too many secrets, fans can “expect something in the future from us.”

For more information, check out Affliction Reunion II on Facebook.