Descendents, Bouncing Souls, Swingin' Utters

Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel, Providence, RI

First off, a couple disappointments: For some reason, I wasn't allowed to bring my camera into the club for this show (gotta try to smuggle it next time, I guess). I don't know if it was the club's idea or one of the bands', but it kinda sucked. (On the bright side, I got to fully enjoy the show instead of trying to get up front for pictures, keep out of other people's ways, etc.) Also, the pinball machines weren't working, so with the silver ball out of the picture we had to focus all our attention on the bands — which turned out to be a good thing.

For whatever reason, I had the preconceived notion that the Swingin' Utters were going to be a sloppy drunk punk band. So I was pleasantly surprised that they were clean, tight and sounded great. High energy Clash-esque is the key here — one guitarist even has a bit of Mick Jones ugly in him. Overall I was totally impressed, especially with the fantastic bass and drum. The Utters alone were worth the ticket price.

I only know a little Bouncing Souls stuff, and it's okay. That sums up how their live performance was to me, too — okay. On more than one occasion I found myself saying "Oh yeah, I know this song...wait a minute, no I don't." Maybe if I knew their material better, several songs wouldn't have sounded so much alike. But eveyone else seemed to be having a grand ol' time, especially when they did their danger-of-being-a-one-hit-wonder song "These Are the Lines from Our Favorite 80's Movies" — the drunk singer went into the crowd to get their favorite lines. The best? "No more yanky my wanky, the Donger need food."

I've been kinda disappointed the last two times I've seen All, but since the new Descendents album was so good (coupled with the fact that I've never seen Milo live) I had to see this show. And I'm glad I didn't miss it. They had a little more "rock star" than I would've liked (long wait after the Bouncing Souls, roadie running around checking and re-checking everything, wireless guitar hookups, etc.), but it wasn't anything stomach-turning. I was a bit nervous when they came out and started playing "Descendents" because it was a little slower than the original; I was thinking that they've slowed down with age. Wrong. I can't really put it into words — they sounded great, the energy was there, and the crowd was into it. Milo, Bill, Stephan & Karl dished out Descendents material from the Fat EP through Everything Sucks, throwing in two All songs as well. They also threw in a few of the sillier ones that I wasn't expecting: "Van," "Enjoy," and "All-O-Gistics" (which I never liked listening to at home, but I enjoyed live). John Doe from X, who was playing next door, came up to sing one song with the band; many old school punks in attendance really got into it, but the moment was probably wasted on most of the younger people (myself included).