Live music review: Social Distortion Sang Their Hearts Out at Moody Amphitheater
I’m a sucker for the legacy of things: that our past matters because it shapes us – the music we like, the movies we saw as kids, how our parents treat us.
I’ve been listening to Social Distortion since I saw their video for “I Was Wrong” off their White Light, White Heat, White Trash record when I was 15 in 1996. To me, the band has always been this working-class representation of guys in Dickies, still into guitars, into dolled-up women, and laying your heart on the line. Years ago, I even got a Skelly tattoo, one of many examples of ink art tribute on my body. When you saw a guy like Mike Ness, you know he was an outsider, a dude that lived to strap on the guitar and those tattoos meant he wasn’t going to be pushing a pen at a desk. I felt the same way about living on being a writer. Social D songs like “Reach For The Sky,” “Angel’s Wings,” and “Cold Feelings” have always served as cornerstones of my experiences as a dude who still loves punk but also the Blues, classic country, rock and roll, oldies, jazz, and doo-wop.
Attending Social Distortion’s show at the Moody Amphitheater, on August 28, it was probably my tenth time seeing the band. I know what to expect at one of those shows: lots of gray hair, lots of parents trying to pass on their music to their kids, and those on the come up looking back to the classics as something of their own. Catching Australia’s The Chats was a plus; I’ve been following the band for a while, and it was good to see some young up-and-comers doing their thing. Mike Ness has always had a knack for picking great support acts, regardless of genre. Legends Descendents ripped through a best-of set, playing standards like “Coffee Mug” and “Clean Sheets.” Singer Milo even wore his water bottle like a weapon, Chewbacca-style across his chest, taking sips in between songs.
Social Distortion are a machine at this point. They’ve been at it for a long time. I respect a band that doesn’t drown you in new material, understanding the crowd is there to hear the hits. Drawing from their new record, Born to Kill, the band fired off a few immediately but soon settled into songs like “Ball and Chain,” “Mommy’s Little Monster,” and “Machine Gun Blues.”
For what it’s worth, the songs “Born to Kill” and “No Way Out” could find themselves in the pantheon of the band’s vast catalog when this tour cycle is over. As we stood there after the earlier rain had subsided, the crowd sang along, giving back to the band, pumping them up on a Friday night. Hopefully, for them it wasn’t just another show; your city always wants to feel special.
The band is a working machine. They know how to play their songs down to the bone. Everyone was locked in and the setlist worked for the average fan. At this point, I’d love to see “An Evening with Social Distortion” and have the band really do it big with their deeper cuts. One of the more interesting takes was Mike Ness being a vocal critic of Texas politics and the Clown in Chief, Donald Trump, going as far as publicly endorsing Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico with a yard sign from the stage. I’m sure plenty of shitkicker Texans who don’t understand punk values grumbled on the way home, but if you didn’t know where the band and the genre stands on Republican politics, you clearly haven’t been paying attention for forty years. Go read the lyrics to “Don’t Drag Me Down” written back when Bill Clinton was getting blown in the Oval Office.
As for me, I’m still a big fan, and it was a pleasure to be there with friends and my fiancé who’d never seen the band. It felt like sharing a piece of something that’s been a part of my identity for longer than I can remember. By the way, that tattoo of mine is creeping close to drinking age.
All photos by Robert Dean
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