Dead Kennedys Review
And Why Half My Friend’s Didn’t Go
By Chelf
It was sweaty, rampageous and slightly deranged as expected from these punk rock legends. Quite predictable as well. Not necessarily in a bad way that is. It’s a formula, you follow it, you get your kudos -or not, and you make it through another show.
Stigma and Gulag opened the show, warming up the crowd. Ah, the crowd: Ex- mohawk devotees rubbing shoulders with the new generation of rebels. Making amends for all the nine-to-five wasted times.
The band, tireless powered through the show like there’s not tomorrow. Ron ‘Skip’ Greer strolled around the stage with an exaggerated swagger as per usual while jumping down and crawling up the stage to keep up the constant physical interaction with the fans.
He lectured us on football and how we are doing it wrong by kicking around the ball in our underwear apparently, on politics, the current state of Greece and well, on the fact that we are evidently too old for pop punk.
As long as we are not too drunk to f*ck we’re good if you ask me, Ron.
D.H. Peligro felt the need to give a mini speech about how racism sucks. And then Ron shared his doctor’s diagnosis that he shouldn’t be performing but he is anyways. We are happy that you do Ron, as long as you are safe that is, and I’m sure that the rest of the world where you gave the exact same speech is more than happy to watch you perform as well.
Technically speaking, some pointed out that they were slightly out of tune but that is something for the musically educated ears to detect, I’m not gonna have a say and frankly I don’t really care. Unlike the much-romanticized heavy-metal scene I like my punk rock raw, unrefined and as disordered as it can get. It was a good show, I would go again to watch them cover Taylor Swifts ‘Shake it Off’ and Elvis Presley’s ‘Viva Las Vegas’ along with a few seconds of “Sweet Home Alabama”.
So, why did half of my friends refused to go? In one word: Politics. Man is a political animal (thank you Aristotle) and some people could not shake off the idea that the Dead Kennedys after all these years of anti-Nazi, anti-war, pro-resistance manifestos are performing in Israel. To them that was a sign of disrespect and impertinence. Respectfully so. If you feel that you are going to make a statement this way, do your thing.
The absence of Jello was a factor as well. No band is the same without its original members but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not going to be equally good. Everything changes. Evolution is inevitable. To me the sole fact that deserves attention here is that people are still into music and unite through that, despite being or not being too old to pop-punk-rock.
Until the next one,
MHF Magazine/Chelf
