Punk Rock Show

On Monday afternoon I headed out of work a little early and made my way up to PA for the evening. A couple months back a few friends and I bought tickets to the Bad Religion & Rise Against concert at the Electric Factory in Philly. I met up with a friend in West Chester, then headed over to Media, for a beer and cheesesteak, and that's where we met up up with another friend, who then drove into Philly.

It seems as though every time I go to a punk rock show of any kind, I go in with the best of intentions to just kinda hang out and watch the show from the balcony or side of the crowd, but for one reason or another that plan never works and I always find myself gravitating towards the mosh pit and the middle of the crowd. When Bad Religion played I actually managed to work myself up to about the 3rd row in hopes of grabbing the drummers attention and trying to snag a drum stick for my collection, but his apparent ADD foiled my plans. Oh well. Once Bad Religion was over my buddy and I were just talking to a bunch of other people around us, trying to find out if crowd surfing was allowed at the venue. I probably asked about 20 people around me if it was allowed, and almost every response was "I don't know, this is my first concert" or "No idea, never been here before." Eventually I got the attention of a bouncer/security guy up front and he mouthed to me "yea, sure if you want." Game on.

Once Rise Against hit the stage, things got really nuts. The moth pit opened up again, people flying everywhere, and plenty of crowd surfing. One benefit of being 'average' sized, is that you can get up and crowd surf really easy. I just find the biggest dude near me, and motion to him that I wanna go up, and he'll make a platform with his hands and launch me up on top of the crowd, and bam, you're crowd surfing [trying not to fall back onto the ground.] Once you get towards the front, the security guys grab you and send you to either side of the stage to make your way back into the crowd so you can do it all over again.

After being in the thick of the crowd for the first 2 bands and half of Rise Against, I was soaking wet with sweat and exhausted. I went up one last time, and then found my buddies and said I'm gonna retire to the back to get some water and cool off [side note: the 9:30 club here in DC does not charge you for water, so they definitely win for better concert venue.] I hung out in the back for the rest of the show watching, taking a couple pictures, and some video clips [seen below.] The main reason I went to see this show was for Bad Religion, but Rise Against put on a really energetic show as well, overall it was good times indeed.

Rise Against, 5/2/11 The Electric Factory, Philly

After the show was over, our whole group began walking around downtown Philly for a little while, cooling and drying off, with intentions of going to a bar for a little while. ......We found a Wawa instead and all got sandwiches and chocolate milk before walking home, and yes, the chocolate milk was an excellent choice! Below are a couple pictures from after the show while walking around.

Downtown Philly at night.

Enjoying our Wawa sandwiches at 1am, talk a motley looking crew! 

Saw Old Glory being proudly displayed in front of one household

on the walk home, had to get a picture.

And here's a couple video's taken with my iPhone 4, pretty killer quality if you ask me!

[Rise Against - Architects]

[Rise Against - Savior Pt. 1]

[Rise Against - Savior Pt. 2]

[Rise Against - Give It All]

New Blog Theme Song

Until further notice, the following song is the new theme song for this here blog. You wanna talk about how awesome it is to be 6 years old? Just check out the video below. It's by an artist named Frank Turner. Frank opened for Social Distortion a few weeks back at the 9:30 club, and beefore seeing all the tour dates for Social D, I had no idea who Frank Turner was, so I looked him up to get familiar with some of his stuff, and I'm glad I did. He's got a bit of folk/rock thing going on, and I really dig his sound. He closed his set with this song 'Photosynthesis' and it's pretty much an anthem on not growing up. It's awesome, and so is the video. Rock on little ones, rock on! ENJOY!

[Frank Turner - Photosynthesis]

Social Distortion Concert: After

Simply put, the Social D show was awesome! I had built it up quite a bit in my mind since I had been waiting so long to see them play, and I'm glad they didn't let me down. I got there early with another friend and we headed inside just after the doors opened so we could get a good viewing spot. We grabbed a place upstairs straight back from the stage and right along the front railing, excellent viewpoint. I stayed up there for most of the show until I couldn't resist any longer and headed down into the pit to let loose! It was a great time, and they played pretty much every song I wanted to hear, except one [Far Behind.]  Anyways, not a whole lot more to say except that I'm really glad I finally got to see Social Distortion play live, I somehow feel like my life is a tad more complete! On with the media!

Another pic/view of the crowd and stage

Here's a small clip I got with my phone of the song 'Ball and Chain'

[please, pay no attention to the awful tone deaf singalong]

[Ball And Chain]

Here's a clip from the song 'Don't Drag Me Down' --  my favorite song and

guitar solo[s] of all time. This is also when the crowd started to really go nuts!

[Don't Drag Me Down]

As I mentioned, I was upstairs just enjoying watching the show for the majority of the evening, but then my buddy said we needed to head down and get into the action, so I double knotted my shoe laces, handed off a t-shirt to another friend staying upstairs, and headed on down. I hadn't been in a mosh pit in quite some time, but it was so much fun, I even got one dude to hoist me up for a small crowd surfing session.

View from the pit. Mike Ness doing what he does best. Rocking faces off!

At the very end of their encore, I was able to get the drummer's attention and ask him to throw out his drum sticks. Anyone who's been to concerts with me, knows that I like to try and get a drum stick from the band. I have a strange knack for usually being able to get one, so I always try. [My collection currently includes drum sticks from Motion City Soundtrack, POD, Dragonforce, Less Than Jake, and [now] Social Distortion.] So the drummer recognizes my request and heaves one stick in my general direction, and I elevated like none other, got above the crowd and snagged that baby right out of the air. My friend Matt was standing right next to me and he immediately starting laughing and exclaiming "of course you of all people would get it!" My friends that remained upstairs saw me right after heading outside and said they couldn't believe how high up I jumped to get the stick, and they were watching the whole time thinking "Did Rob just get that stick?!" Why yes, yes I did. It was a great end to an awesome, awesome night.

The Holy Grail of my drum stick collection

Last but not least, I wanted share one more song/video. I mentioned in my last post that they're getting ready to release a new album, and they played a couple songs from it, and I was pretty excited about what I heard, this song 'Still Alive' was a standout in my mind. Here's video of the song from a concert earlier in the year. Enjoy!

[Still Alive]


Until next time, Peace and Love, Don't Push and Shove!

Social Distortion Concert: Before

Tonight is the night I've been waiting for, for a long, long time, and it's loooong overdue. I'm finally going to see Social Distortion play live. A long while back I mentioned that I was going to see them the next time they toured no matter what. Well they're currently on tour, and tonight they're playing at the 9:30 club, and I will be there, rocking out all night long to the sweet sweet sounds of Mike Ness' guitar solos. Here's some of my favorite songs by them, and some great pictures [old and new.] Social D has been around for decades, and for me, they've always been one of those bands that I absolutely must see play live. Check back tomorrow for pictures and video from the concert. Enjoy!

[Story Of My Life]



[When The Angels Sing]

Old Social D Picture

New[er] Social D Picture

Gibson Les Paul, Goldtop - Mike Ness's Axe of Choice

Current Tour

[Far Behind, Live]



[Don't Drag Me Down -- Probably my all time favorite song]

Also, Social D is getting ready to drop a new album, 'Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes'

VERY excited about that!!

Something Corporate Last Night

It ruled. Band still sounded real good [for the most part] after having not played together for a number of years. They played two nights, and both nights sold out as well. Also, there was no opening band, and we were a little late getting to the show. Fortunately for me, I was wrong yesterday in my guess about 'I Want To Save You' being the first song, and I got to hear it later on in the set list. The long metro ride home though reminded me of going to shows in high school and getting home real late, only I get up earlier now for work than I did for school! Anyways, here's a few iPhone pics of the show. If I can get a hold of the small video clip I took I'll post that up as well. Enjoy!

Pretty sure this was them playing 'Konstantine'

'Punk Rock Princess'

End of the encore

Something Corporate Tonight

Tonight I'm heading over to the legendary 9:30 Club in DC to see 'Something Corporate' play one of their reunion shows. Two of my best friends will be there as well, and we all used to listen to this band in high school together, so it should be a pretty fun show for us.....and the swarms of screaming teenage girls who will no doubt be in attendance as well. My favorite song by them is called 'I Want To Save You' so I hope know they'll play it tonight, and judging by the video below, I should hear it pretty early on in the show. Enjoy!

[I Want To Save You]