As I sat in my car driving to the Great Western Forum, I thought to myself "I have seen Bad Religion at least 30 times, why the fuck am I going to this show anyway?" then it occurred to me, I must really love Bad Religion. Now I understand that there are millions of people out there that just love Blink 182 and that's fine. They are a talented band and deserve all the success they can get, but I personally can't stand how the corporate hand has taken a fine band and made them into a music commercial. And I can't stand the fact that Bad Religion opened for them on this night. 

One thing I noticed when I walked in to the Great Western Forum was that there were a ton of parents with their kids. I knew that it must be the Blink 182 fans because in my history of seeing Bad Religion I have never seen this. Another thing I noticed was that all the kids here had to be under the age of 16. Boy did I feel old, and I'm only 25! And at the fact that most of the kids there were so young it made me sick to find that Blink 182's management  was selling g-string underwear to these pre-pubescent girls. Isn't there a law against that? But hey, at least it's filling the pockets of the corporate whores behind Blink 182. I was also pissed to find that Bad Religion was only aloud to sell only three styles of shirts while Blink sold enough types of stuff to fill a department store! I guess Blink's record company was a bit scared Bad Religion might out sell them. Well enough bagging.... lets talk about the show.

I finally found my seats way up in the nose bleed section of the stadium and had to kick out some old fella and his son because the Dad seemed to have lost his glasses and he thought that his ticket told him these were his seats. It took me a while to show him that he was wrong. At this time Bad religion took the stage, and less than half the people seemed to get excited, well what can you say, most were there to see Blink. But I stood proud as I raised my fist and gave Bad Religion the cheering I felt they deserved. With a huge backdrop of the cover of their new CD "The New America" backing them, Bad Religion kicked off the show with gusto and power! Greg spat out lyrics just as hard and snappy as he did the very first time I saw them over 10 years ago. Chills ran down my spine as I look around at the sold out crowd. I was pleased to see that more people were getting into Bad Religion as the songs passed. I guess some just realized what a real band was to sound like. As I jumped up and down in the small area I had while Bad Religion played one of my favorite songs "Modern Man" I regretted not having a floor seat so I could engage in some friendly pit style dancing. Bad Religion played songs from just about every album they have pressed. In full throttle they jumped about the stage and feed off what they could from the audience. My only beef about them was the fact that they were opening for Blink and that they looked like ants from where I was sitting. Good job Bad Religion but lets hope I can see you again later this year on your own turf with your fans.

Now it was time to see Blink 182. As they took the stage the once dossal crowd became a bunch of yelling, screaming and yes, crying teenagers. I could hardly hear my self think! One would have thought it was the 1960's and the Beatles were about to play.  I have to say I was quite impressed by this. Being I'm not a true fan of Blink I couldn't tell you what song they opened with but I could tell you this, it was about a chick. And then the next song, also about a chick. In fact I think all the songs they played were about chicks! Now don't get me wrong here, Blink 182 is a very tight and talented band, and they put on a very good stage show, but they lack originality in the lyrics section. And they did have something that Bad Religion didn't and I wish they did, a huge video screen as their backdrop so people like me in the nose bleed section could see them. I do have to say that I did gain a new respect for the boys in Blink after seeing them perform. They owned the stage and let the stadium know it! With enough energy to kill a small village of Ethiopians, Blink gave the people their moneys worth of silly antics and hard driving love songs. If you are not a ticket holder for a leg of this tour I suggest you hop you fat ass off the computer chair and go get one now!

Frank Rizzo