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

Sunday: The Dickies, The Vandals, Black Flag, Descendents

By Sunday, I was dragging my feet.  Upon my arrival, I chugged a Monster Energy Drink as I made my 3rd round of paying 10 bucks for parking, being herded like cattle through the queue line, and being enthusiastically patted down through security.  It was down to no-nonsense by this evening: buy merch first as it will be gone by the time the show ends (picked up a Descendents hoodie), and hit the restrooms early before they smell completely like ass.

Other nights, the venue had been a little more than halfway full for Adolescents and Youth Brigade, but that was not the case with The Dickies.  A band considered the “clown princes of punk” had plenty to offer, with singer Leonard Graves Phillips spending the set dancing, doing jumping jacks, shadowboxing, and at one point, dancing with a blow-up doll.  Phillips reminisced about the Santa Monica Civic auditorium, recalling his first show he saw there: Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Punk Rock!  And here he was, “80 years later, a 50-year-old pot-bellied jackass!”

A great surprise of the night was when they brought up Dead Kennedys’ guitarist East Bay Ray for a great cover of Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid”!

After a few songs that Leonard said promoted “Incest, outcest, and ritualistic jaywalking”, he briefly donned a gorilla mask for “You Drive Me Ape”, then a penis hand-puppet for “If Stuart Could Talk” into a cover of the Who’s “Touch Me, Feel Me”.  The band wrapped up their all too brief set with “Gigantor”.

Up next was possibly my favorite live band ever, The Vandals.  Bassist Joe Escalante and Drummer Josh Freese built the mood with a slow build for “Urban Struggle” until it jumped into its fast-paced gallop. A nice surprise was that a lot of their set belong to playing songs from Peace Thru Vandalism, an album they usually don’t cover much of: “Wanna Be Manor”, “The Legend of Pat Brown”, “Pirate’s Life”, and “Anarchy Burger” all were performed.  It was awesome to see “Lady Killer” live for the first time, especially as it was punctuated with an unexpected cover of  ”Baby Got Back”.  Not ones to rehearse, The Vandals admitted to not particularly being prepared for the show, and ended up comically cutting “Wanna Be Manor” short.  Well-rehearsed or not, the band is always tight live, and the rest of the set was filled with favorites like “Oi To The World”, “Pizza Tran”, and of course guitarist Warren Fitzgerald taking the microphone and closing their set with their cover of “I Have A Date”. And he kept his pants on…whaaaaat?

What can I say about Black Flag? Well, I can say that the time you spend reading this paragraph will probably eclipse the amount of time they spent on stage.  Word that the band was going to be making an appearance (with Keith Morris singing, not Henry Rollins) spread quickly on Twitter and Facebook over the weekend.  By the time Sunday rolled around, it wasn’t much of a surprise.  The crowd went nuts as the band took the stage and raged through “Nervous Breakdown”, “Fix Me”, “I’ve Had It”, and “Wasted”, but then in a flash, the stage was empty.  Murmurs of “Wait! That can’t be it?” were heard, before the venue erupted in a chorus of boos.

Keith Morris came back out to apologize, saying that the band did not have time to practice, and getting together for sound check was the only time they got together.  So that happened.

Whatever shadow the Black Flag debacle cast on the night was quickly forgotten when the Descendents hit the stage.  This band one of my all time favorites, and it was only a short time ago when you could only dream of them playing live again.  I got the chance when they opened up for Rise Against back in April, but with a 35 minute set, it was a kind of tease.
Sunday night though, we were graced with an hour-long set from Milo and crew.

The performance was not without its technical difficulties: every amp on stage seemed to encounter some kind of failure, but the band powered through and the crowd, being so stoked to see the band live, did not seem to notice.  The crowd hung on to every chord and sang along with every word from with reckless abandon, and with it,  a kind joyous energy was felt in the venue.  The band brought a group of kids to recite “All-O-Gistics”  like “Thou shall not take the van’s name in vain” and “Thou shall not partake in decaf”, and frantic 30 second songs “Coffee Mug” and “I Like Food” made the setlist.  The band powered through on point performances of songs like “Nothing Without You”, “Clean Sheets”, “Suburban Home”, and “I’m Not A Loser”. The band temporarily left the stage, and as some gear got fixed and replaced, Milo promised a 3 song encore “without any technical difficulties”.  Then came the triple hit of “Sour Grapes”, “Coolidge”, and “Thank You”.

And with that, GV30 was over. As people were leaving, we were left with a teaser : “See you again in June.”

Could there be more stellar punk shows like this looming on the horizon? I can’t wait to see what else Goldenvoice has up their sleeve.