Best Alternative to a Twentieth High School Reunion

The X concert on July 17 felt like old-home week for the grown-up punk set, a reunion of one-time scenesters who were listening to the influential band way back in 1983. Back then, lyrics such as Honest to goodness, the bars weren't open this morning/They must have been votin' for the president or something... the tears have been falling all over this country's face/It was better before, before they voted for what's his name captured the fear and loathing of Ronald Reagan's administration -- but they sounded really freaky twenty years later at Kansas City's Madrid Theatre. This time, It was better before ... they voted for what's his name didn't feel like a kiss-off to Reagan but was instead a torturous reminder of the decline of Western civilization under people named Bush. Fortunately, though, there was redemption in John Doe's manic, never-say-die presence; Exene Cervenka's steely cool (the sexy way she flipped her frilly Western skirt didn't hurt, either); Billy Zoom's shit-eating grin and guitar posturing; and D.J. Bonebreak's raw momentum. The room was extra full with forty-year-olds who don't go out much anymore but still remember everything X stands for -- namely, the power of musical dissonance combined with fast, hard, wry sociopolitical commentary. Audience members kept running into old pals they hadn't seen since the drinking days, and more than a few were wearing earplugs -- but not because they didn't want to hear what the band had to say.