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Rancid in Command Over Punk Nation / Furious, Aggressive Show at Warfield
By: James Sullivan Chronicle Pop Music Critic - The San Francisco Chronicle
December 11th 2000
When the lights came up on the punk show at the Warfield on
Saturday, Rancid's Tim Armstrong stepped down from the stage and
waded straight into the crowd. Not for this band the rock-star
privileges of the dressing room, the party platter and the waiting
Town Car.
One of the most successful bands of the mid-'90s punk revival, the
Bay Area-bred, Los Angeles-based Rancid has boiled its world view
back down to the purest essence of punk. The band's most recent
record, called simply "Rancid," storms through 22 furious songs in 38
minutes, seemingly without a single gasp for breath.
Saturday's set, on the final date of Rancid's current tour, was
like volcanic residue -- molten stuff that became rock-hard as it
cooled. The band played about two dozen songs in a little over an
hour, assaulting every one of them as if a life depended on it.
Rancid has always been the contemporary punk band most associated
with the hard-core lifestyle of the towering mohawk, and Saturday's
sold-out show brought out every garish variation on the style this
side of the Mississippi. Foot-long spikes of heavily glued hair shot
out from heads like scale-size Statues of Liberty or prehistoric
fish; during the intermissions, some of the band's younger fans lined
the walls of the lobby, trying hard not to seem self-conscious about
their budding coiffures.
EAST BAY'S A.F.I.
After a brief opening set by the Distillers, featuring Brody
Armstrong, Tim's wife, the middle slot belonged to A.F.I., the East
Bay's newest punk nationals. Led by the rising star Davey Havok, the
group drew its devoted following to the foot of the stage. The band,
given to the cartoon imagery of a year-round Halloween, was backlit
by a half-dozen jack-o'-lanterns. In shiny black plastic pants, Havok
lorded over the lip of the stage like a postpunk Jim Morrison.
Punk idealists, Rancid deals in absolutes. Just before the band
took the stage, a huge flag unfurled; fittingly, it was black and
white.
The flag was a replica of the band's new album cover, a scratchy
skull-and-crossbones that looks as if it's been scraped onto the
cover of a composition book with a penknife.
Lars Frederiksen, the one band member who still wears a mohawk,
pitched himself into "Maxwell Murder," the first song on the band's
breakthrough album, 1995's "-- And Out Come the Wolves." Armstrong,
meanwhile, armored in a black biker jacket and a pair of aviator
shades, a bandanna wrapped around his head, rode his low-slung guitar
like a pogo stick.
A BIT OF PATTER
"It's so nice to be back home," said Frederiksen, leading a well-
chosen segue into "Journey to the End of the East Bay." It was
clear he's not typically prone to stage patter.
The band's set drew primarily from "Wolves" (the Jamaican thrash
"Roots Radicals," Frederiksen's solo electric "The Wars End") and the
relentless new album (Armstrong's "It's Quite Alright," bassist Matt
Freeman's gravel-throated "Black Derby Jacket"). Though 1998's "Life
Won't Wait" is Rancid's best album, it was perceived by many die-
hards as a bit of an indulgence, and the group made a conscious
effort to underplay it.
Likewise, the group's onetime status as the most ska-oriented of
the '90s punk bands -- Armstrong and Freeman formed Rancid out of the
ashes of the East Bay's short-lived Operation Ivy, the band that
singlehandedly resurrected ska-punk in the States -- was underplayed
as well. Only a few numbers -- "Roots Radicals," the irresistible
"Time Bomb" -- featured skanking rhythms. Everything else was a punk
anthem.
Armstrong dedicated one of them, the 1994 raver called "Name"
("You don't know my name/ Paint a number on my head"), to his mother,
"who worked hard her whole life."
Working hard, fighting for your freedom and finding a safe haven
are Rancid's themes. "When I got the music, I got a place to go," the
band and its audience sang to close out the regular set. Armstrong
made like he was going to sling his guitar into the audience, then
thought better of it. A harsh note of feedback rang out like a huge
alarm clock on the morning of a bad hangover.
The first of the band's two encore songs featured Havok, who
joined his "big brothers" for a version of Rancid's debut-album track
"Rejected." The night ended with "Ruby Soho," on which the group
sings of a "destination unknown."
Despite the implication, this band knows better than most which
way it's headed.
(C) 2000 The San Francisco Chronicle. via Bell&Howell Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved
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