Bad Religion At The House Of Blues 03/18/2010

What can I say that hasn’t already been said, in the last “30 band years” about, what is, arguably the best punk band in history, Bad Religion? The band, often credited with being involved in the revival of punk rock and inspiring several subsequent punk bands. NOFX’s lead singer, Fat Mike, has even credited Bad Religion with inspiration. The band that has been praised by New Found Glory, Rage Against The Machine, Alkaline Trio, and hundreds of others praising recently and in the past.

On Thursday, March 18th I, along with a sold out crowd, had the pleasure of seeing this band of legends live at the House of Blues Anaheim. Immediately after they got on stage and started the set with the hit “do what you want”, a song from their “Suffer” album, considered to be one of the best Bad Religion songs of all time according to a fan poll, I knew it was going to be a great night. By the third word people were already crowd surfing and the mosh pit was gaining momentum.

Bad Religion continued to entertain the crowd of all ages, from 40 something’s, to teenagers, to families with their little kids with “Overture/Sinister Rouge”, and “American Jesus” , a song recorded with backup vocals by none other than Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam.

The set continued with the hit, “New Dark Ages” from their newer album, “New Maps of hell”, “Them And Us”, “Suffer” and “Recipe For hate”. By this time I only saw one person get thrown out of the venue and the mosh pit, respectably aggressive without being too dangerous.

Between songs, less than a quarter of the way through their set you could hear fans screaming for their favorite songs, “generator” and “sorrow” could be heard throughout the crowd. In other part of the crowd you could see moms looking franticly for their sons, just to make sure they weren’t in the mosh pit (and sons making sure their moms don’t know they are moshing)

Then came “The Handshake” , one of two songs from their “Stranger Then Fiction” album that was played tonight, along with “Germs of Perfection”, “Tomorrow”,  “Pessimistic Lines”, “Best For You”, and “Change of Ideas”, During which time security guards were keeping busy with crowd surfers making their way from the back of the venue to the front just to be carried to safety – just to do it over and over again.

The set list was great as it went back and forth from older songs, to newer, to popular, to less played. Next was “Won’t Somebody” from the New Maps Of Hell (deluxe edition), then “Los Angeles Is Burning”,  “Dearly Beloved”  and “How Much Is Enough”.

The night continued with radio hit song “A Walk”, followed by “Man With A Mission”, “I want to Conquer the World” which had the crowd chanting, “We’re Only Gonna Die” and then, “No Control”, the same name as the album it came from, which is often considered one of the highest selling albums in the history of punk rock.

By the time they were playing “21 Century Digital Boy” everybody was singing. Even the moshers were chanting lyrics in between running into each other while Bad Religion was playing this very popular hit. And their new song“resist-stance”, which proves that age isn’t anything but a number and this “30 in band years” band still has a lot up their sleeves. They then played "You" and, you guessed it.. "Generator".

For an encore, three songs which got a lot of help singing from the audience. “Fuck Armageddon... This is Hell”, followed by the ever so popular “Infected” and the classic “Sorrow”

While Bad Religion’s 47 year old lead singer Greg Graffin admits to saying at one time, “'Never trust anyone over 30”, I think he would take that back. Greg and Bad Religion has proven today that age is nothing to be afraid of, and that bands can last more then a few years, even if you have a few lineup changes ,(pay attention Blink). And – most importantly, 30 years later you can still make as big of an impact as you did way back when.

The night really couldn’t have gone better. Bad Religion played a fucking awesome set, the staff was polite and attentive, the audience was fun and having a great time. The only thing we were missing was, well, nothing..

Till next time.