Opening Bands: Ignite, Dirty Mary
Date: May 12th 2002
Venue: Irving Plaza, NYC
Thanks to Hector @ Epitaph for hooking us up with tickets for the show. My brother and I made our way into rainy NYC and tried to find parking near Irving Plaza and saw the line, it was freakin’ LONG. The line went around one corner and almost went around another. So these shows definitely sold out I said to myself. As I made my way up the line, I guess I was standing by a door of a restaurant and some cocksucker that works for the club was telling people (singling me out basically) to make way for someone delivering food.
I didn’t even hear him OR I chose to ignore him saying to move. When someone came outside the door, he said “I’ll tell you again, move away from the door!!” Real nasty way too. I screamed out “I’m trying!” because there wasn’t anywhere to move to. Maybe I would have moved a little quicker if you were a little nicer to me you fucking scumbag. So Irving Plaza, if you keep hiring bullying assfucks like that, pretty soon you’ll be another club closing it’s door in NYC like the rest of them. Pricks!
Anyway, I finally got inside the club and went upstairs to find a good spot. That wasn’t going to happen. I found a decent enough spot behind two short people and could see the crowd and all of the stage. I thought Ignite would open but some 3 girl punk rock band opened instead. They were called Dirty Mary and they were, pretty attractive. Though they presented themselves like whores and CTs. They also did really, extremely bad jokes between songs. I didn’t like their music and from judging from the crowd’s response, they didn’t either. I heard throughout their set “You suck!” and “take it off!” so you know the crowd really loved them. After that was a fight in the crowd so that was fun to watch. Especially since I was in the balcony and wasn’t actually in it.
Next up was Ignite and they were excellent. I saw them once before when they opened for Goldfinger and they rocked then too. Yes, I know they’ve been around before that schmucks. I just didn’t get a chance to see them before that. Ignite started off with “Who Sold Out Now.” They played a lot of newer songs like “Veteran,” “Run” and “Bullets Included, No Thought Required.” I’m glad they played “Veteran” because that’s one of my favorite songs from them. They also played “Embrace” which is a great song too. What got the crowd really going though was the lead singer’s rant on the Middle East and how George W Bush doesn’t have balls and then went into U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” I don’t like U2 too much but they did a awesome job covering that song. They played a new song and it’s kind of a slower, more punkier sound than their earlier stuff but it was good though. Definitely check out Ignite when you get a chance.
Pennywise was up next and again the crowd went crazy. I love the balconies at clubs because I could watch the band, but also watch the dancing. They started things off with “Fight Till You Die” and went into some older stuff like “Unknown Road” and “Pennywise.” They played a few songs and said they were done with the set lists and started asking kids songs. I really wanted to hear “Peaceful Day” but I left before they could play it. They played “Stand By Me” and asked some kid to come up and sing it. Fletcher predicted the obvious and said the kid was going to butcher the song. Well he was right. Jim & Fletcher commented on several things like 9/11, kid touching priests, and bad cops/good cops. They played a ton of songs and some of the ones that I could remember were ” Every Single Day,” “Fuck Authority,” “Alien,” “Perfect People,” “Date With Destiny,” “No Reason why” and many others. Throughout the concert, my legs were about to fall off from working out the previous day so I couldn’t stand anymore and needed to leave. I left before Pennywise could play “Bro Hymn” and some others they would in an encore. Definitely check out Pennywise and Ignite when you get the chance. Great show, fun time.