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Pennywise

PENNYWISE
THE VANDALS • THE ATARIS
THE ADOLESCENTS
98 MUTE • ALL DAY
May 17th, @ The Long Beach Arena, CA
Photos by: Scott Wulfesteig
Review by: Araki Maroo
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Punk Rock and the long Beach arena somehow they don’t seem to fit together?!? A huge building with pretty whales painted on it and a bunch kids with spikey bracelets and even spikier hair. It seems I might be in for an interesting night. Having arrived about a half hour later than I wanted to, I was pissed that I had missed the openers of Hermosa Beach’s 98 mute and Long Beach’s local punk bad boys All Day. And because of the now usual prison pat down, associated with entering any good punk show I missed a good portion or the legendary punksters The Adolescents set of old school punk rock. But I was able to at least hear Tony Adolescent and the guys play their early hit smash hit Amoeba. And it did my heart good to see during the Adolescents set a bunch of young punk kids making the “Drop of Life” from the upper section to land in drunken heap, then scurry into the crowd before a security guy could nabbed them. Ahhh! to be young and crazy again, it had to be about a fifteen-foot drop onto a hard concrete floor! Ouch! I only wish I could have seen more of what I was told was a scorching set.

Piss on the KROQ van!

Up next was a dose of the high-energy kinda punky music of the Atari’s. I think they were a last minute add on at Jim and Fletcher’s request, and were sorta the odd man out at this more old school punk oriented event. It seems the crowd was mixed on their reaction towards the band, some like them, some just wanted them off the stage so the Vandals and Pennywise could play.

At one point some overzealous fans decided to start hucking pocket change at the band to try to help them along with gas money. But the band did a good job of playing through the early tension, and eventually got the crowd behind them and eventually one over some fans.

Now it was time for the hucksters to come from the stage, in the guise of O.C. bullfighting vets The Vandals. You have to love The Vandals, they’re just a damn fun band to watch, and they put on one hell of a show and tonight was no exception. Singer Dave Quakenbush started the nights set with a little mambo number and it got wackier from there. They whipped the crowd up buy playing a ferocious version of Anarchy Burger off their early release Peace through Vandalism, and for some strange reason played the holiday slanted hit Oi to the World off the album of the same name. But skipped Vandals classics like Urban Struggle, I guess it was due to the short set times given to most of the bands so far this night. The Vandals then pressed forward playing newer tunes like the scathing corporate music parody Behind the Music, as well as the ode to the jilted guy New You, both off their last Nitro release Look What I Almost Stepped In. but the standout performance of the night was when quackenbush took over at guitar and let the wacky Warren Fitzgerald take the mic for a comical long winded closer of I have A Date. Lets just say it included a dream of Warrens, the spanking young ladies to the beat of drums, and a little cheesecake, we’ll let your minds do the rest.

But now it was time for Pennywise to take the stage the way only they can. The bands been around since about1988 and has slowly built a legion of fans so strong that they can have a little shin-ding at an arena and almost sell the place out! I missed the beginning of the set waiting in the huge beer lines, but I was able to make out the ending of Date with Destiny and then right after that Society both off their Epitaph album Full Circle. After that Jim, Fletcher, Randy, and Byron launched into a couple more classic Pennywise tunes, playing Straight Ahead and Pennywise both off albums of the same name. This was my fifth time seeing Pennywise and Jim always seemed to invite the fans in back to come up front, which usually causes near riotous reactions like the scene that happened at the Dennis D. benefit show but not so at this show. Probably because the crowd didn’t need much prodding, at times huge waves of kids would either storm the doors, our flow over the sides of the loge seats all trying to get to the precious floor section. The Floor section, were three, yes three pits rotated in sporadic rotation. By the time Pennywise broke into their anthem of anarchy Fuck Authority, cops were already starting to line the door ways. But all in all the security did a decent job of blending in and letting the kids do what they want, there was stage diving galore and tons of kids surfing the crowd, and tipsy young girls flashing what ever they weren’t showing already. Then it happened a showgrinding rendition of Stand by Me song by people from the crowd! Arghhhh! It was almost painful to listen to, but that was about the only thing wrong with tonight’s show. After playing some more great tunes like Perfect People off yet another great epitaph release. But the highlight of my night was watching one of the younger police officers in attendance, nodding his head and reservedly singing along to the radio mainstay Alien. Will wonders ever cease?