This show was a great promotional idea by whoever brainstormed this billing of two of the most seminal of Southern California punk bands with two of the best of the newer breed of California punk bands. 
 

Of the four bands on this bill, one of the most impressive was the show opener IGNITE.  I discovered IGNITE earlier this year and have seen them live every chance I’ve gotten, which totals about four times so far.  In the time between the  first couple of times I saw IGNITE, and the last two times I saw the band, guitarist Brian Balchack had left for reasons still unknown to me.  At the time of the last two shows I saw, which includes this show and four days later at the Palace in Hollywood on the last show of the tour opening for Bad Religion, the band was alternating between a guitarist named Nik (last name unknown), and another guitarist by the name of Kevin Kilkenny.

Kevin Kilkenny was the guitarist for this show, and if the introductory props given to him by IGNITE vocalist Zoli Teglas were true, I’m totally impressed by the performance given by Kilkenny after learning the short version of IGNITE’s live set in just a few hours before showtime.  Kilkenny is also the guitar player in Zoli and Brett’s side project The Zoli band.  Although IGNITE’s set only ran a little over half an hour, and Kilkenny appeared to be concentrating on playing the songs exactly the way they’re supposed to be played and didn’t go off throughout the set like the other band members who the set material is second nature do, he did do exactly what he was supposed to and played the songs note for note and made the crowd take notice of his admirable talent for which they showed their appreciation. 

IGNITE opened with a powerful rendition of “Who sold out now?” off of their latest album “A Place Called Home.”  Without much ranting between songs IGNITE plowed through classics like  “Embrace”, “Ash Return”, and “Black Light” off of the albums “Past Our Means” and “Call On My Brothers”, as well as “Burned Up” and the title track from “A Place Called Home.”  On this night, and with the help of Mr. Kilkenny IGNITE was as incredible as ever. 

Check out www.ignitemusic.net.
 

I could lie to everyone including myself about how I saw T.S.O.L. at the Starwood twenty years ago just to get some bragging rights and add some cool to my credentials, but I’d probably start feeling guilty and have to confess that I lied.  The truths are I was always on restriction for some punk oriented prank when I was “that age”, I was too young to get into the Starwood or any club at that time, and I was forbidden from doing anything that had anything to do with punk (which only made like this stuff more).  Damn! I’m so honest I make me sick!  I can’t even lie without ratting myself off these days! 

Well, it’s not 1980 any more; it’s year 2000 and whoever says there’s no second chances in life probably missed the boat too many times. Opportunity always comes back around a second and third and even fourth and fifth time if you keep your eyes open wide enough to see it when it does, as evidenced by my finally getting to see the original T.S.O.L. line-up (minus Todd Barnes R.I.P.).   T.S.O.L. is one of the great American Punk bands that went through trial by fire, black-eyes, and bloodshed, and made it safe for all these 14-year-old punks to walk around today with their Mohawks, Green Day t-shirts and 18 hole Doc Marten Stompers without getting the crap beat out of them just because they look, think, and act a little different than the norm.  This show was apparently no different than the shows from twenty years ago that were the legend told to me in punk rock 101.  Jack Grisham was born with the natural ability to stir chaos and push a crowd to do the extreme.  From the opening song “Superficial Love” to the encore of “Code Blue”, T.S.O.L. incited every act short of a riot from the crowd.  It was chaos throughout the show as I watched fans flying over my head and across the barricades both ways throughout the bands set. 

Jack, Mike, Ron, and new drummer Jay O’Brien made my first T.S.O.L. show worth the twenty-year wait, and I can’t wait to hear the new T.S.O.L. album that’s coming out soon on Nitro Records. 

You can check out all the latest from T.S.O.L. at www.truesoundsofliberty.com. 
 

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