Bad Religion, Less Than Jake, Hot Water Music

Avalon, Boston, MA

Hot Water Music opened the show, playing about a half hour set, which is about the amount of time I like to listen to them. I really like HWM, but after about an album's worth of their music, I tend to have had enough. Anyway, they sounded good ... 'nuff said.

Even at the peak of my ska days, I was never a big Less Than Jake fan. The music is okay, but their songs are too similar for my taste, relying too heavily on "whoa-oh-oh" backup vocals. But, in their defense, they seemed to be having a good time, and the all-ages crowd was, too — in fact, this was the first time I've seen a Boston crowd actually moving in I don't know how long. So who am I to judge? I'll just sit my old ass in the back and wait for Bad Religion...

...or "Bald Religion", as a friend of mine overheard someone call them. (Though, to be fair, Graffin's always been thinning, and Hetson hasn't had much hair post-Generator.) And I guess they figured that being a sextet just wasn't punk, because prodigal son Brett Gurewitz wasn't playing with them, keeping BR a five-piece. They did play with more energy than I had expected, and I think this helped get the crowd (at least those of us closer to the stage) going — yup, a Boston show where the crowd wasn't a bunch of statues.

Bad Religion played a good mix of old and new songs, starting the show off with "Suffer". They didn't play much of anything from Stranger Than Fiction through The New America; the majority came from their strongest period between 1988-1993 — "American Jesus", "Modern Man", "Recipe for Hate", "I Want to Conquer the World", "Skyscraper" (dedicated to 9/11), "You", "Anesthesia", and a cool version of "Atomic Garden". They also did a large chunk of their latest album, The Process of Belief (which sounds more like their older stuff), and ended the show with "Fuck Armageddon...This is Hell" and their big hit that I never liked, "21st Century Digital Boy". Overall, though, Bad Religion proved that they're not only still relevant, but better than most bands around now.

Updated Mar. 2002