A band with roots deep in punk covers all the bases with flair
There are very few bands able to mark their birthday among the first blush of punk rock’s existence still able to claim anything resembling credibility today.
Most of the class of 1976-79 have either become a cartoon, a joke or a gravestone. Punk itself may have aged well, arguably, but punk rockers have not. Maybe it was the heroin. I don’t know.
California’s Social Distortion has much to recommend it, in addition to the fact that it still exists.
Primary among the list of plaudits is the fact that the band—led, of course, by the incorrigibly focused Mike Ness — has left a deep scar on the face of rock ’n’ roll. Social D’s music prefigured the alt-country movement by at least a good decade, and Ness’ ability to marry the “three chords, six beers and the truth” methodology of punk with the deep, earthy vibe of traditional American music — country, folk, blues and so forth — put him more in line with Bruce Springsteen and Jeff Tweedy than it did with Johnny Thunders and Iggy.
Sunday, the new version of Social Distortion — Ness fronting a band that boasts no original members, though that doesn’t seem to matter at all — tore it up before a sold-out Town Ballroom.
The band, as ever super tight and suitably aggressive, pulled from every nook and cranny of its career, with choice covers arriving just when they should’ve to keep the juices flowing and the context of it all well lit.
But what was even more interesting than Social D’s performance was the disposition, makeup and demographic delineation of the crowd. Punk, it seems, has no trouble making the generational leap. In evidence Sunday were three generations of punk music fans, ranging in age from folks who remember Ness and Co. from 1982, to those who perhaps learned about the band from the Guitar Hero video game as recently as last year.
The band took a good while to emerge from the wings of the Town Ballroom stage, but the assembled did not seem troubled by this. When the group did take to the boards, after 10 p. m., folks went a bit nuts. Ness walked to center stage in a trench coat and bowler hat, both of which he lost but quick, stripping down to the standard Social D uniform of black T-shirt, black slacks, wing tips, slicked-back hair and sneer before the first tune had run its course.
The set list revealed a desire on the part of Ness and friends to pummel the assembled into a state of co-conspirator’s guilty glee. “Creeps” led into “Another State of Mind” and the sinister strut of “Mommy’s Little Monster” prior to anyone in the building taking a breath. Then “Sick Boy” gave way to the anti-racism corker “Don’t Drag Me Down,” from the record many feel to be the band’s finest. “White Light White Heat White Trash.”
A cover of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” underscored Ness’ intent — that being to marry punk’s snarky ebullience to the deep tradition of American song.
Based on Sunday’s show, he’s succeeded.
Concert Review
Social Distortion
Sunday night in the Town Ballroom, 681 Main St. Also, 7 p. m. Tuesday.
Social Distortion returns to the Town Ballroom on Tuesday for a second show.
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