Bad Religion - Live atthe Palladium

Mon 13th Mar, 2006 in Music Reviews

With a history spanning back more than 25 years, Bad Religion: Live at the Palladium demonstrates that these guys, though mostly beyond their fortieth birthdays, are still well short of their use-by date. Unlike other bands of a similar era, Bad Religion isn’t performing a Greatest Hits Reunion tour, or any other such money-grubbing affair. As Live at the Palladium demonstrates, a receding hairline does not equate to diminished passion.

Concert footage on this DVD was filmed over two consecutive nights at the Hollywood Palladium, a legendary venue in southern California for alternative music, having hosted such legends as the Ramones and Led Zeppelin. The concert opens with the gradual swell of Overture, the opening track from Bad Religion’s most recent release, The Empire Strikes First. As on the album, the ponderous and melancholic semi-instrumental piece explodes into the ferocity of Sinister Rouge, setting the crowd alight.

Over an hour-and-a-half, Bad Religion covers a relatively small selection of their greatest songs, but, given that they have 18 releases to their name, any concert was bound to miss a few. In spite of this massive drawing area, song selection is excellent, with a superb balance struck between vintage Bad Religion reaching as far back as their 1982 album How Could Hell Be Any Worse?, with songs from albums like No Control and Against the Grain standing alongside more recent material in a testimony to the band’s unceasing quality. Interspersed throughout the concert footage is a collection of one-on-one interviews with the band members.

All six members of the current line-up discuss the birth and evolution of Bad Religion, from the influences that brought founding members Graffin, Gurewitz and Bentley together, through to the events that impacted on Bad Religion as a musical force, right up until the present day. By scattering interview portions throughout the live show, Bad Religion ensure that the audience is always engaged. This neatly sidesteps the failing of many concert DVDs, where the lounge room fails to match up to the live venue for ambience, leaving the viewer bored, and irritated at spending thirty bucks for a pale reflection of a live show. While this tactic might scare off fans of lighter bands, Bad Religion have long since established a reputation as intelligent, insightful and challenging, particularly through the polysyllabic lyrics.

For those unacquainted with Graffin’s verbosity, here’s a sample from Kyoto Now: “It’s a matter of prescience No, not the science fiction kind It’s all about ignorance, and greed, and miracles for the blind the media parading, disjointed politics founded on petrochemical plunder and we’re its hostages”. Fans of the band are not only willing but eager to embrace such use of language, and as such should be able to cope with the half-hour of interviews that pop up throughout, but wise heads have offered the viewer the freedom to exclude the interviews from the set at the main menu.

While bassist Jay Bentley and guitarist/Epitaph founder Brett Gurewitz could never be confused for anything but musos, lead vocalist Greg Graffin bears more resemblance to a cool high school science teacher than to the singer from a legendary 80s punk band, but none of that matters when he takes to the stage. From the expression on his face to the growing patches of sweat on his shirt, there is no doubt that Graffin is throwing everything he has into his performance. Age has not wearied him, because he punches out a 90 minute show with all the intensity of his more youthful self. The same is true for the other two guitarists, Greg Hetson (formerly of the Circle Jerks) and Brian Baker (formerly of Minor Threat). Neither would look out of place in a high school staffroom, but put a guitar in their hands, and they too are transformed into gods of punk rock.

As though a 90 minute concert and half an hour of interviews wouldn’t be enough, this DVD comes with a feast of appealing and novel bonus features that further illuminate the history of this landmark band. Giving insight into the roots of Bad Religion, two brief sets are included from the New Wave Theatre shows, one shot in 1980 and one in 1982. The first of these shows Bad Religion in their fledgling form; young, brutal and unrefined, their influences show through, with Graffin’s familiar resonance masked by an Johnny Rotten-style delivery. Backed by stripped-back, discordant guitar, the punk scene of the late 1970s is summarised by Bad Religion as passionate adolescents.

In the 1982 set, Graffin has already begun to develop his powerful, unique voice, backed up by greater confidence in his stage presence. Though still a teenager (he would’ve been about 17 at the time of taping), Graffin is composed and dramatic, compared to the slightly uncertain 15 year old in the previous set. The music is more polished, too, though still bearing the influence of seminal bands like The Circle Jerks and Black Flag. Fans can chart the growth of Bad Religion through the six video clips included on the DVD, ranging from as far back as 1992’s Atomic Garden up to Los Angeles is Burning from 2004’s The Empire Strikes First. All this is backed up with a photo gallery, reflecting the various eras and incarnations of the band. Bad Religion is one of the definitive punk rock bands to emerge from southern California in the 1980s.

Alongside such legends as Pennywise and Down by Law, Bad Religion went on to create music that is always passionate, intelligent and appealing. Made up of members from the fringes of mainstream society, it is little surprise that popular success eluded Bad Religion, even while bands like the Offspring and Green Day made punk popular. Bad Religion have always been challenging musicians and thinkers, offering them a more lasting appeal than some of their contemporaries, and helping them to build a loyal alternative fanbase.