The Germs – Krum Bums – at Toad’s Place – New Haven, CT

I arrived at Toad's Place around 9, the time when the show was slated to start, walking in the door only to discover that I had missed the first band on the bill, a local band whom I'd never heard of, Murdervan.

The Krum Bums set up pretty quickly and came out blazing, playing their Austin, Texas brand of Lower Class Brats-esque street Punk with a little hardcore flavor. I had seen these guys a couple years ago with the Street Dogs, but they have improved tenfold since then. The Krum Bums played about a half hour set, covering their entire catalog and even throwing in a 7 Seconds cover, "Young 'Til I Die", which was pretty cool to see. There was no one too involved for their set, the crowd being both very sparse and just plain unfamiliar with the band.

After about a 40 minute wait, the Germs and Shane West came out and broke right into their classic, "Media Blitz". Their set was peppered with all the Germs classics, from "Lexicon Devil" to "Circle One" to the last song of the set, "Richie Dagger's Crime". Shane West, or as drummer Don Bolles referred to him all night, "Shane West: rapper, actor, and singer extraordinaire", was all over the stage, climbing everything in sight. Shane spent a good 25 minutes of the 50 minute set up in the scaffolding of Toad's Place, having various beers and objects thrown at him every time he tried to talk between songs, accompanied by shouts of "Play a fucking song, Hollywood!". Shane seemed like he was really trying to personify Darby Crash while onstage, forcing the crowd to at one point wonder if he was going to jump off the 20 foot high scaffolding just below the ceiling of Toad's. His singing was spot on, but his onstage antics were not overly inspiring and did nothing but get the crowd to throw more empty beers towards him.

The crowd during the Germs was very uninvolved, with no real circle pit going on despite the band's desire to see a good one get started. The turnout was typical for a Connecticut Punk show; horrible. Talking to Lorna Doom after the show, even she was saying the show was no fun in the sense that no one was getting involved, but was fun in the sense that she could let loose on stage and just do whatever, since most of the crowd seemed unfamiliar with the Germs music, they had no expectations going into the show.
 

-Scott R.-
East Coast Big Wheel Music Scene Reporter

 

 
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