Bad Religion – Agent Orange – Heartsounds – at House of Blues – Anaheim, CA

Anyone from Southern California knows that whenever Spring and Easter roll around, you can always find Bad Religion playing a few shows here. However, not only were they "celebrating" Good Friday this particular show, it was part of their twenty date 30 Year Anniversary tour held at the House of Blues' in Anaheim, Hollywood, and Las Vegas. During this huge tour they were joined by many friends including the Adolescents, Death by Stereo, and TSOL, but tonight I was lucky enough to see them accompanied by surf punk legends Agent Orange and San Francisco natives the Heartsounds.

The doors opened at 7PM, but my party didn't arrive until 7:30. The upside to this was missing the huge line of people to get inside the venue, the downside was that the stage area was already heavily crowded and was off to the side rather than in the pit or front and center. The first band, the Heartsounds, started at 8PM sharp, starting their set off with tons of energy heard through every instrument. Lead singer and guitarist Ben Murray employed a voice similar to Rise Against lead singer Tim McIllrath, with fellow guitarist and vocalist Laura Nichol bringing a balancing melody to their music. The band, who recently signed to Epitaph Records, possessed a sound similar to 90's Punk rock, with a pop Punk harmony with a hardcore twist. The Heartsounds proved to rise up to the challenge of opening for Bad Religion and Agent Orange, making them a band to look out for in the near future.

Agent Orange started their set around 8:40 with an instrumental introduction, creating a massive pit within seconds. The band welcomed the fans and thanked them for coming out once they were done. Lead vocalist Mike Palm began to introduce the group's next song by saying "this is how you'll describe tonight's show", and began to play "It's All A Blur" followed by their hit "Secret Agent Man". They also went on to play the hit "Everything Turns Grey" and dedicated the next song to "the hippies in the back", a unique, powerful and unique cover of Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love". Numerous times in the set Mike and the other mentioned how much of an honor it was to open for a band like Bad Religion, and expressed their gratitude towards the fans. They also thanked a woman backstage named Jenna and proceeded to play “Happy Birthday” for her, which Mike joked that they rarely performed at Agent Orange shows. He also claimed the band was about to play a song they haven’t done in 18 years, and surprised the crowd by playing “America”, making the mosh pit even crazier than it already was before, and really riled things up by playing my personal favorite “El Dorado”. The last three songs played by Agent Orange included the slower “I Kill Spies”, the classic “Bloodstains”, and the appropriate “The Last Goodbye”. Agent Orange’s set left the crowd hungry for more Punk rock, and the next band Bad Religion was the perfect band to fulfill that need.

Rather than closing the curtain to set up, Bad Religion left it open to display all their album covers from the past 30 years as the backdrop for the stage. At exactly 10PM, the stage went dark and “Pomp and Circumstance” began playing while the members of Bad Religion presented themselves on stage. The crowd began clapping, cheering and going insane. The lights hit and the band began to furiously play “Do What You Want”, “Sinister Rouge” and “New Dark Ages” . After the songs were over, Greg Graffin thanked everyone for coming out and joked about how they’ve played the House of Blues so many times they can tell when they clean the towels and when they aren’t (that night they weren’t, he claimed). They then proceeded to play a few songs they don’t perform often, including “Germs and Perfection” and “Best for You”. It seemed within every song that Bad Religion played the pit grew larger, especially when they performed “A Walk”, “Recipe for Hate”, and hits from the earlier age including “No Control”, “Suffer”, “Generator”, and “Modern Man”, with guitarist Greg Hetson doing his infamous jumps while performing these hits. In true Bad Religion fashion, they controversially joked about Christianity and the upcoming Easter holiday(although Greg pointed how that he actually is a very tolerant person) ,with bassist Jay Bentley laughing about his shirt with the Pope on it that he got in Germany when they played a show there, then proceeded to play the hit that was necessary for tonight’s set, “American Jesus”. The group then performed hits off their latest album “New Maps of Hell” like “Dearly Beloved” and “Requiem for Dissent”.

They took a small break to once again thank the crowd, and claimed that the reason 30 years proves to be a big deal is because the fans keep the punk scene going, and that “without OC, the L.A. scene wouldn’t be alive”. Greg also stated that Bad Religion was invited to open a stadium show for a “small” band by the name of Green Day, mocking them as the crowd booed by saying they could if they wanted to, but that Green Day was too unknown for them. Going from newest to some more earlier hits, they played “I Want to Conquer the World” and “Change of Ideas”. The lights went out once again, and the introduction to “Fuck Armaggedon…This is Hell” began playing, causing the crowd to go wild. The lights came back on, and the band performed the song with more power and energy than any other song before that, with crowd surfers floating left and right and the pit growing faster and more intensely. They finished off the set with “21st Century Digital Boy” then left the stage. A few people came on stage to tease as the crowd cheered and chanted “one more song!” then the members of the band came out and performed the immense hit, “Infected”. After “Infected” I was excited to see what the next hit would be, as it turned out to be the classic song off “The Empire Strikes First”, which is “Los Angeles is Burning”. The last song of the set was exactly what I thought it would be, “Sorrow”. As they played, I could feel the passion in Greg’s voice, the strumming of Greg H.’s guitar and Jay’s bass, and in the drums of Brooks Wackermann. As they finished off the song, Greg and Jay thanked everyone, Brooks polished off his drumming, and Greg H. began throwing out guitar picks as they exited the stage. They curtain then closed, officially ending the show.

Swarms of Punks young and old filed out of the House of Blues Anaheim, some bloodied, most bruised, and all battered up from the amazing and historic show they just experienced. Some of the fans were chatting about the upcoming Bad Religion shows they’re attending or want to attend, which I recommend everyone should do before tickets completely sell out and it becomes too late. In the words of Greg Graffin, “it truly is a Good Friday”.

-Sarah K.-
Big Wheel Music Scene Reporter

 

More photos of the show can be seen HERE

 
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