REVIEW BY ZACHARY TROVER
On a humid night in KC, the crowd at the Uptown seemed fine with getting close and sweating it out to get the chance to see the Riverboat Gamblers, Rancid and Rise Against.
We arrived about halfway through the Riverboat Gamblers set and, sadly, we were kind of OK with that. While I do enjoy the band (notably the track "A Choppy, Yet Sincere Apology" which you can listen to at their MySpace, the sound was somehow off in the Uptown and the band was too loud to even discern what songs were being played. Singer Mike Wiebe did put on an energetic stage show (complete with crowd surfing and towel throwing) in an attempt to get the crowd moving. Too bad we really couldn't hear them. If you're into pop-punk at all, their album Underneath the Owl is worth checking out.
After a short wait (the transition time between bands was amazingly quick) a big projection screen on stage played a short film in Tim Armstrong's signature high-contrast style and Rancid took the stage: Lars Frederiksen with his spiky bleached hair and face tattoos, Armstrong in his pork pie hat and low-slung guitar, Matt Freeman on bass and Branden Steineckert on drums.
Opening with "Radio," Rancid got the crowd ready to jump around, and a sizable circle pit opened up as the crowd-surfing started.
Rancid has been a band since 1991 (well, technically Lars didn't join the band until '94) and every single one of their 18 years playing together showed on stage. These guys are a working band and they went to work. It seems weird to use the phrase "professional punk," but these guys are definitely professionals and good at what they do.
Rancid played a similar set to the one in Saint Louis on the 13th -- a tight 50-ish minute set, since technically they were opening for Rise Against. They quickly moved from "Last One to Die" (off their new album Let the Dominoes Fall) to Bloodclot (which provided the crowd many fist-pumping opportunities with its chorus of Nah nah nah nah nah HEY!) to the crowd-pleasing "Nihilism." Everyone sang along, even to the new songs. The crowd was pretty diverse. Everyone from rockabilly kids to aging punks to an 8-year-old kid with a green mohawk (even some dudes with dreadlocks) were all sweating on each other... that is until the band briefly left the stage.
Upon their return, the band was carrying acoustic guitars, and Lars told the crowd that he wanted to "break it down" for everyone. He briefly explained that every song that Rancid has written has been composed first on acoustic guitars and that they were going to play "The 11th Hour" off ...And Out Come the Wolves.
Musically, it was pretty impressive. At one point Tim Armstrong sat down on the stage like it was a campfire sing-along. Sadly, I got the impression that this moment of "musicanship" was lost on a crowd that really wanted to jump up and down. (If you're at all interested in hearing Rancid go acoustic, the new album comes with an "acoustic disc" which is actually pretty fun to listen to).
After the song wrapped, I think the band got the vibe of the crowd and the electric guitars came back out. At this point Rancid went back to work. Playing "Roots Radicals" followed by "Journey to the End of the East Bay." The whole thing was wrapped up with "Ruby Soho," and the whole crowd sang along, even after the music stopped. The band left the stage, the lights came up and all the aging punk rockers and smokers headed for the door. (I got hit in the nose by an overly excited smoker and while bleeding, I decided to give up on the rest of the evening, missing out on Rise Against.)
On the way out, holding my bleeding nose and walking past the smoking corral, we overheard exited talk about the set that everyone just saw (and complaining that they had to smoke outside). At the end of the corral we saw little kid with the green mohawk hanging on his Aggrolites-shirt-wearing Dad. They all had the biggest grins on their faces. I never thought of a punk show as a family affair, but I couldn't think of a better place to be on a great summer night.
Dramatis Personae
-- The Andrew WK look-a-like (complete with missing teeth and dirty white t-shirt) flipping sweat on everyone and singing along (and the girl with the nose ring that kept telling him to "get in the pit" so he'd quit getting sweat on her).
-- The giggling rockabilly guy sneaking hits off a little pipe then blowing the pot smoke down into the crowd.
-- The little mohawk kid sitting on his dad's shoulders making "metal hands" the whole set.
-- All the young women, who were obviously there because Rise Against is a band of cute boys that care about animals (they do a lot of work with PETA).
-- The aging punks with bald spots and Dropkick Murphys t-shirts who were really REALLY enjoying the show ... and their beers.
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