GV30: Celebrating Goldenvoice With 3 Days Of Punk Royalty In Santa Monica

Bad Religion/ Photo by Alex Rauch

[Gallery] GV30 With Social Distortion,…GV30 has come and gone, and as I’m recovering from exhaustion, a lost voice and a hangover, I’ve got to say it’s been one of the best weekends I’ve ever had.

This 3-day festival celebrating the 30 year anniversary of Goldenvoice and concert pioneer Gary Tovar was for me a dream line up of punk bands, and I’ve been looking forward to these shows ever since they were announced.  And by judging the sheer enthusiasm from beginning to end from punks young and old, I was definitely not the only ones. From the first chords strummed Friday night to the last cymbal crashes as Descendents closed the weekend, punks drank, moshed, and sang their hearts out.

I was lucky enough to be able to go to all three nights…how am I still alive?!

Friday: Adolescents, X, Social Distortion

The night started with a bit of pre-gaming…I mean….conversing about today’s political climate…and as I walked up to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, I was first greeted with a maze of metal barricades, as concert goers were herded like cattle through security patdowns…that’s punk rock right?  Making up for it was the sight that met me after my entrance: a  veritable swap meet of punk rock nostalgia.  On one side, merch tables of the bands playing that night, and along the other side, a large display of GV30 shirts and old school punk shirts: Black Flag, Iggy Pop, Dead Kennedys…I could’ve easily emptied out my bank account buying every shirt they had.

Instead, I bee-lined for the beer table.

I finally made my way into the venue to catch most of the Adolescents‘ set, and instantly, two things came to my attention.

One: The huge range of concert attendees, which helps give you a real understanding on punk’s longevity and reach.  I saw kids as young as 13 and adults that could’ve been as old as 60; punks dressed in t-shirts and jeans, dyed mohawks, studded leather jackets and  bondage pants. A completely diverse group throwing fists in the air and singing along.

Two:  This.

The back of the venue had some seats, and when bands were on stage, it was FILLED.  Mostly young people, too.  Who sits at a punk show?

As we waited for X to come on, a guy next to me was screaming lyrics from NOFX’s “Separation of Church And Skate”, while two other guys almost came to blows. Apparently, someone was frustrated with getting pushed around with the music, and from the argument came my favorite quote of the night, if not the weekend:

“Chill out, old man! This isn’t a f–ckin Eagles concert!”

This show would actually go on to have the oldest majority of the weekend. Gary Tovar came out to say a few words, revealing he was handed X’s album when it came out, but let it sit for a year before finally listening to it.  A year wasted, he now admits.

The lights finally dimmed, and the crowd erupted in cheers as X started off the set with “Your Phone’s Off The Hook, But You’re Not”.  Exene and company tore through 21 songs including classics “Los Angeles” , “Nausea”, and “Sugarlight” before calling it a night with “Devil Doll”.  X was one of the bands of the weekend that I had loved for years, but hadn’t been able to see live, and I was floored with how solid they were.  They also seemed to have a great time, guitarist Billy Zoom had a smile plastered on his face throughout the entire set.

Around 10pm, the lights in the Santa Monica Auditorium dimmed once more, as a police siren began to blare, and Social Distortion came on to close the night.  Their set belonged mostly to the old school, and they opened with a blazing rendition of ”1945″, one of my personal favorites.  “I wrote this song from the Orange County Jail,” explained Mike Ness as they next tore through “Justice For All”, as the moshpit in the middle of the floor became more frenzied.

In between songs, Ness thanked the crowd for picking GV30 rather than spending their night “catching up on Sons Of Anarchy”.  He then thanked Goldenvoice and Gary Tovar for being pioneers in promoting punk music :  before they came around, no major labels or promoters came knocking on his door, he joked, “because I didn’t have a house.”  Ness further showed appreciation, explaining that Tovar gave punk bands a place to play, and facilitated the growth of the So Cal punk scene.  Mike also revealed he had personally chosen the Adolescents and X to join them Friday night.

The rest of the set passed quickly, a mix of more old (“Telling Them”, “Moral Threat”) and more recent (“Machine Gun Blues”, “I Was Wrong”).  Everyone enthusiastically joined in on singing “Story of My Life”, and the night ended with a roaring cover of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire”.

And that was just one night.  I still had 2 to go.