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The marquee above the entrance of Times Square's B.B. King's Blues Club said "Rancid," but it turned out to be a little more than that.
Punk rock -- a banner which left-coast foursome Rancid proudly still wear to this day (despite encroaching age, and the genre's many ups and downs) -- is all about attitude. Defiance is the cornerstone on which the genre was built. Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" was too cheesy to be a punk anthem, but the concept is grudgingly accepted by those immersed in the genre's mores. After all, it's all about shock, whether administered through internal or external means.
Let's get to a full disclosure by your humble reviewer: the night before this concert, I celebrated birthday #48. Now there are those who wonder why the hell a 48-year-old would want to see Rancid -- fair question. But, if you got a load of the crowd who attended the second of four sold-out nights, you'd see I'm not alone. I took great comfort knowing that I wasn't the only oldster there who wasn't employed by the club.
And to answer inquiring minds, I was at the show because I happen to like the way that Rancid packs a whole bunch of 'tude in tidy three-minute songs. I also like the fact that few of their songs are rebellious for the sake of being rebellious -- there are some intelligent lyrics about world politics and consumerism coming from the minds of the quartet. And, besides, it's fun seeing everybody trying to dress the part of punk -- with all the leather in the club, I thought I was in a handbag store in an outlet mall. A memo to those over 35, though: wear something else; you look ridiculous.
Rancid took the stage at precisely 10 pm and played for 70 minutes, packing 26 songs into that time (including encores). Screens that flanked either side of the stage showed cheesy clips of horror movies from the '50s and '60s -- a cool, if kitschy, touch. I'm told the band rehearsed over 150 songs for its current tour, including non-Rancid "proper" material (Op Ivy, Bastards, etc.). The moment the band took the stage, beers started flying in the pit -- bodies followed shortly thereafter.
It's still the original band at work: guitarists Lars Frederiksen and Tim Armstrong (he of the porkpie hat), bassist Matt Freeman (who is fighting lung cancer; he was diagnosed last year), and drummer Brett Reed, just keep plugging along like the pros they are. Frederiksen, who did a majority of the band/audience interaction, said a new album would be out in October, but the band didn't preview any material from the record. Not that it mattered -- the old material was enough to satisfy.
The only suck-ass (how's that for punk rock?) moment of the night occurred during your humble reviewer's favorite song, "Lock Step and Gone," as some moron at the front of the stage threw a punch at another audience member. The band stopped cold in the middle of the song, and Frederiksen called the idiot out, saying, "This is punk rock! Leave that shit for football players!"
Sadly, the band didn't resume the song. . .oh, well. But that was the only black mark on the night (leather notwithstanding). The band pulled out "Skunx" from Lars & the Bastards' catalog, and -- with two original members of Operation Ivy in the house, Armstrong and Freeman -- the band also treated the crowd to punk classics "Sound System" and "Knowledge." No contest: Rancid's cover of "Knowledge" beats Green Day's (not to mention every high-school band in existence's) hands down.
The band played plenty of staples from And Out Come the Wolves ("Maxwell Murder", "Listed MIA", "She's Automatic", "Journey to the End of the East Bay"), and stretched even further to the ends of their career, pulling out cuts ranging from the anthemic "Radio" to their most recent hit, "Fall Back Down".
Speaking of which, at the start of the encore, all four band members strapped on acoustic guitars to play "Fall Back Down" and "Sound System". After the initial shock, the crowd embraced this "lighter" Rancid. But here's a question: I saw Rancid on their last two tours (their previous was 2003 after the release of their last album, Indestructible). On that tour, they only played four songs from the new album. At this show, they pared it down to two, both in the encore ("Out of Control" being the other). Why? Indestructible is a damn good album. I guess the band didn't quite embrace the finished product. Such is life. . .
Rancid is a band for whom music is a salve for personal setbacks (Freeman's cancer, Armstrong's public loss of his then-wife to Josh Homme). In true punk fashion, they play their guts out every night, and give their fans a full evening's entertainment. And, oh yes, all this for the whopping price of twenty bucks! (By New York City standards, that's BEYOND a bargain.) Rancid may be punk, but they're the smartest punks on the music scene. So go see them. . . but please, if you're older, leave the leather home. Trust me; you look more skunk than punk.
— 14 September 2006
