going to a place where the tough guys go

I just returned from one of my irregular trips, one of the ones where I fly somewhere for a while and follow a band around. In this case, I saw Social Distortion, mostly in Southern California. (I also saw Henry Rollins, but those weren’t concerts, and they were icing on the cake. He happened to be having some shows while I happened to be in Los Angeles, so I happened to find myself at both of them.) And, because I am still pretending this is a music blog, I keep thinking I should say something about the trip, or the concerts, but I find myself at something of a loss.

I mean, what’s in a concert review? Openers, I guess, and any sort of antics. Maybe set list info. Some comment about the crowd. I could talk about my feelings. I know everyone loves it when I have feelings.

But Social D shows are so consistent that I’m not sure I see the point. Here’s how they are going at this particular moment in time: There are two opening acts, and probably I will like the first one more than the second one. When it’s time for the main event, everyone in the band who isn’t named Mike Ness will come on stage and rip into ‘Road Zombie,’ the instrumental that opens the new record. Then Mike Ness will come out in a suit and a trench coat and a fedora, and he will look good doing it, and he will stand at the edge of the stage and soak up some applause, and then he’ll swap the trench coat for his Les Paul and join the fun. The hat will last for three songs, and the tie will last through the main set. They will play for 90 minutes. The main set will close with either ‘Making Believe’ or ‘Still Alive.’ The encore will close with either ‘Ring of Fire’ or ‘Story of My Life.’ There will be a circle pit, a dozen or more crowd surfers, and several fights. If it’s an all-ages show, there will be children on the rail.

And if I sound snarky, I’m not. There’s enough uncertainty in my life, you know? Sometimes I just want to stand in a room with 1,500 tattooed people and sing along to ‘Sick Boys’ at the top of my lungs with my 1,500 best friends, and there’s a place I can do that. I’m comfortable at a Social D show in a way I’m not at most other shows. Not physically, but psychologically, and sometimes that’s more important.

So anyway, the “reviews”! Let’s begin at the beginning.

In Reno and San Diego, Chuck Ragan went on first. In Fresno, he went on second (more on that later). He impressed me every time. I’d heard his stuff but never seen him, and I liked him a lot. Energetic, enjoying himself, and he’s got one of those 60-grit voices I love more than I should. Also, he kind of looks like a fisherman, and for some reason, that was doing it for me. Yeah, I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe I shouldn’t admit that in public? Anyway, I think he won over a ton of people every night, and that’s always cool to watch happen.

Lucero, god, I’m still so torn. I have been trying to get through their albums for ages and I can’t ever do it, and their live show is good when they’re sober but how often does that happen? Not often. I can’t say I’ve seen them a million times, but of the three times I have seen them, once they were good, once they were bad, and once they lurched between the extremes. So my personal jury remains out on Lucero. Maybe it’ll always be out, who knows.

And the Aggrolites, man, I like the Clash as much as any self-respecting punk and I’ll listen to reggae when I’m in the mood, but I really don’t know why a reggae band was opening for Social D and I do not appreciate being yelled at to make some noise. They were really energetic and fun to watch, but you know how at radio PR stunts about the new mall opening there is a guy with a bullhorn who goes around screaming FIRE IT UP and generally being obnoxious? I felt like there were six Fire It Up guys on stage forcing me into a singalong I didn’t care about. Thumbs down, Aggrolites, I’m very sorry.

Aaaand then there was Fresno, where Social D opened for themselves, more or less, because Lucero and Chuck Ragan’s fiddle player (Jon Gaunt) were stuck in the Donner Pass. Yes, really. I almost met that same fate, but my bus left early enough that we made it through the blizzard, if only barely. The driver put chains on the tires — chains on the tires of a Greyhound bus, okay — and drove 20 mph for 100 years. We stopped every five miles or something so he could chip ice off the wiper blades. And so in Fresno, Brent (bass) and Jonny (guitar) and Danny (organ, accordion) and Dave (drums) walked out, and half the place was like, “who the hell are these guys?” They did an acoustic set of country songs — some covers, and some originals from Brent and Jonny’s side project, and I don’t know if said side project has a name — and were sometimes joined by Chuck Ragan and sometimes by his bassist (Joe Ginsberg). They were just messing around, having a good time, and I thought it was a lot of fun. Ragan took the second slot, without Gaunt, and somehow killed it with just a guitar and a stand-up bass.

Main event(s), back to Reno! Everyone was throwing hats. I don’t know why, but the hats started landing on stage almost immediately (my theory: too hot to wear them and nothing else to do with them), and they kept coming, and Mike Ness got progressively more pissed off. The pit was hellish. But pissed off Mike + hellish pit = great energy in the room. We all staggered out of there like we’d been in a war, and I am not generally a fan of casino shows, but it was nice to collapse directly on to a bar stool and be handed a vodka. Anyway, during the intro to ‘Making Believe,’ one hat came close enough to Mike that he had to duck it, and the way that song works is that there’s a slower, quieter, mostly-Mike intro, and then a sustained chord of anticip … … … … ation, and then the rest of the song at a faster tempo with the rest of the band. And during that chord, he reared back with a snarl on his face and stayed there so long that the band started looking around like, are we doing this, or are we done? (They weren’t done.)

In Fresno, I noticed, there were no hats allowed. Gentlemen, everyone was told at the doors, no hats tonight. Hmmm.

Fresno is also responsible for my perfect moment of rock & roll zen, which happened during the encore. At the end of ‘Prison Bound,’ a fight broke out directly to my right. I don’t think it was the only one, but it was the closest one. I looked over and I saw a small space had cleared in the pit, two guys punching each other in the face, bodies flying everywhere in the red light as security hauled women out of the pit and the cops jumped in. The first cop — and why there were cops there, I don’t know, maybe because security was stoned — tried to come over the rail nicely but couldn’t, so they said fuck it and dove on in; a nightstick grazed my mouth as the second one came over. [Cut the inside of my lip but didn't leave a mark.] “Motherfuckers,” said Mike Ness. “Don’t make me come down there.” And then he ripped into ‘Ring of Fire.’ It was the quintessential Social D concert experience in about 20 seconds.

There are two tracks on the new album with gospely background vocals, ‘California (Hustle & Flow)’ and ‘Can’t Take It With You.’ The closer you are to LA, the higher your chances of those background vocalists being at the concert. Those might be my two least-favorite tracks on the album, but I thought they were great live. They sounded good, they looked good, and Mike does a little dance when they take over and he doesn’t have anything else to do. And what can I say, I’m all for any situation in which Mike Ness does a little dance.

I am not, however, for any situations in which he talks about making a little love. In Chicago, he gave a big lecture about masturbation, complete with terrifying hip-swivel moves, that was thankfully not repeated. He did mention how great it is, though, which. Thanks, dude, I’m good. I don’t want to know about your best lovin’, I really don’t.

He also has a pretty standard spiel about Back In His Day, When Punk Rock Was Dangerous. I’ve heard it before, I will hear it again, you can hear it on the Live at the Roxy album, which came out in ’98. That speech is currently serving as the intro for ‘Still Alive,’ but I liked this particular version. It went something like this: “I think it’s fair to say that we took beatings so kids today can dress the way they do. So what I’m trying to say is, respect your elders. …no, wait, that’s not what I’m trying to say. What I’m trying to say is fuck you.”

What I’m trying to say is fuck you. I expect that will make a few appearances in my lexicon.

And that, more or less, is what I’ve got for you. Setlists, if that is the sort of thing you care about: Reno/Fresno (that’s the Fresno setlist, but Reno was identical), San Diego 1, San Diego 2.

And last (but not least!), I took my camera to the final show. I don’t think I’ve ever taken my actual camera to a show at which I was planning to go anywhere near the pit. I do not have hardly any practice taking concert shots because I don’t enjoy it very much — I know and love some concert photographers, and I am in absolute thrall to what they do and I am so glad they do it, but it’s not my thing. I shot two songs — well, two and a half, because I love ‘Road Zombie’ but refuse to count instrumentals as songs when it comes to rock shows — and I feel like I missed them. That all said, I am really happy with and proud of the photos I took. Like, really really happy. Feel free to check out the flickr set.

Aaand now I’m switching from punk rock to CanRock for a while, which is good, because I am currently black and blue (literally) from various pit shenanigans.