Sounds and Shadows

For all the punk shows I have seen, there are so many that only rolled through once or twice over the near 40 years I have been attending live shows. There are others that we sometimes think are going to live forever. Such bands just tied up a group party known as the “45 Years of Groupsex” tour, celebrating the aged like fine wine, the masterpiece of Los Angeles’ punk legends, “The Circle Jerks”.

Being a sort of spinoff of Black Flag, they fired up their own west coast punk act, with their first album “Group Sex” in 1980, if you were offended by the band name, or the title of the album, clearly this band was not for you.

I saw them in the flailing days of “Alice’s” in Salt Lake City that closed shortly after these gigs. No time for nostalgia, they came through several more times as an ever-touring band before they disbanded in 1990.

Coming back and delivering an all-out show of historic punk rock with “Adolescents” and Detroit’s “Negative Approach” in tow.

I arrived at the venue “The Depot,” which is a pretty large concert hall, and though I have seen The Circle Jerks in smaller venues over the years, never anything this big. I got up to the main floor  and saw it was filling in pretty well. Aside from a festival, this is turning out to be the biggest hardcore punk show I’ve been to over the years.

NEGATIVE APPROACH

I got into the pit, and got my lighting levels set, and one of the bouncers (who was also a fan) explained who “Negative Approach” was and that they had a brief stint on the scene from 1981-1983, and likened them to the MC5. Whoa, now those are some shoes to fill.

They took the stage, and the singer John Brannon introduced the band, and lemme tell ya, he has a world-class scowl. He told us we would have a brief set tonight, but that he was glad to be back on the road.

They blazed through the set. I know their first song was “Hypocrite” because Brannon said so, it went down really fast, and much like an old Ramones gig, after a song finished, they take a breath and then drumsticks tap in 3 times, then off into the next song. Somewhere in the set, he said, “This is A Sham 69 cover, called ‘Borstal Breakout”And a handful of songs later, he said, “Any Iggy and the Stooges fans out there?” Everyone cheered, and then they played “I Got a Right”. I honestly couldn’t tell you much more about the setlist, just because I had never heard them before, they were tight and fun.

Adolescents

The summer of 89 was a mad summer for punk shows. I saw Testament, Nirvana, TSOL, and so many others. It was a great time for the heyday of hot summer nights and 5$ tickets at the Speedway Cafe. That was when I last saw Adolescents, and they put on a great show. I was sure I would enjoy them tonight, though many of us were now feeling a bit more on the geriatric side, several of my old school punk friends were there. WE all have grey beards, and several of us use canes.

Adolescents took the stage, with all of them looking old-school and just greyer. I was hoping to see Rikk Agnew in this lineup (being an old Christian Death fan), but no such luck; his sons weren’t there either. (we all know how old school acts have high turnover)

They opened with “No Way, and to my surprise, Tony sounded just as good as he did in his 20s. They sounded just really tight. If I closed my eyes, I thought I was back at Speedway. He sounded great, as if no toll had been taken on his voice after all these years.

“Brats in Battalions” followed, while they weren’t as animated on the stage as years past, the floor was pounding to the punters, forming a somewhat large mosh pit. I had to keep dodging the bouncers catching people flying towards them, and still get photos.

I think they were playing “Rip It Up” Before I left the pit, again shooting in between human flight tests.

I went up to the balcony to get more pics, and that was where I saw the mosh pit and the insanity of it all. Reminded me of so many great shows I went to starting in 87, but, yeah, never going to do a mosh pit again. At least not that crazy.

We got what I think was a whole 15 songs on this bill from them, I didn’t get the whole setlist but I remember “Self Destruct”, “Amoeba”, “Democracy” and “Just Because”. There was a lot of anxiety in the air this evening, the angst was powerful, and it kept the punters spinning, and those who were crowd surfing always had somewhere to land.

I will write a little note here about the security staff at “The Depot”, many years ago, some guy sucker punched me and hit my friend in the stomach because I was talking to his girlfriend (Whom I’ve known since 8th grade while she was congratulating me on my new baby born about  a week later), and my friend fell to the floor and was just as stunned as I was at this asshole’s behavior. The bouncers were all over this guy for hitting a woman in the stomach, and just hitting some guy out of nowhere, and continuing to threaten him. He was out the side door before he could explain he was just a totally drunken, insecure douchebag. They were asking us if we needed medical, etc all within less than a minute of this. So, it’s clear they know how to handle a fight breaking out. BUT, how do you manage a moshpit and crowd surfing? Well, they seem to do that really well, knowing the boundaries of a mosh pit, people violently ramming into eachother, and not seeing it as an “altercation”. They made sure no one hit the ground and managed to catch everyone flying over the top of the crowd. I haven’t seen something that intense for the bouncers since Lollapolooza, so kudos to The DEPOT on this one.

Now, a breather, striking the gear for Adolescents, they were playing some knarly good polka music. AND, you all know that I am a HUGE polka music fan. So, I was getting my groove on at the absurdity of this, and the chief bouncer in the pit was up on that little platform at the barricade, also getting her polka on. Now, she actually KNEW these dances, I wondered if she was from Wisconsin cause she had those moves down. I tried to get a video of it, to make a TikTok of it, “Bouncer Getting her Polka on, Prior to Punk Rock Gig”. It was too dark and didn’t come out, really, it was a site to behold, for any polka music fan.

THE CIRCLE JERKS!!!!!

With the place just hot with sweat everywhere, and so far, everyone having a great time, Keith and crew took the stage. Keith said, “Ok, I have to give you all a bit of Punk Rock History here,” and he explained how each member came from which LA band and who came from what other band, and how they ended up in this band. Each name brought cheers, but without a whiteboard, it was hard to follow such a historical family tree. Then Keith said, “Ok, so we have 30 songs, and one hour, and we’ll get through this. They tapped out 3 on the drums and started off with “Deny Everything. (I was also given the first 6 songs to shoot, because most of the songs were less than 2 minutes each).

With Zander Schloss on guitar, looking like he walked out of a blues band, and onto the stage for this gig, Greg Hetson on bass, in pinstripe shorts, slacks, and his head shaved, and big glasses, he sort of fit the part. Joey Castillo on drums, with a clear “FUCK YOU ICE” attitude, and the tattoos to show he means business, Keith Morris was there in blue jeans, a black t-shirt, a Greek Fisherman’s hat, red “Chuck Taylors” and dreads past his waist, this was PUNK ROCK as current as it ever was.

With two-minute renditions of the following: “Letterbomb”, “In Your Eyes”, “Stars and Stripes”, and “Back Against the Wall”, I hoped I had gotten enough good shots to cover this gig; it was a whirlwind, and no one could think otherwise. I went upstairs to the balcony, took a seat in a booth, got some really great shots, and just enjoyed the rest of the night.

With a sea of punks rolling around in waves, and a very wide mosh pit, only stopping when a song was finished, waiting for the next one to start, or Keith Morris taking the opportunity to go off on some political tirade about how Trump sucks, and how racism is evil, he would get yelled at by Joey telling him we were all on a time crunch, and start tapping his sticks for the next song. All of this means that everyone was having a really great time.

Several songs, “Beverly Hills”, stand out, and then a great “When the Shit Hits the Fan”, the first song I ever heard by them, in a friend’s basement in 1987. Then “Under the Gun”, and the classic “Coup d’etat” (Let’s face it, they are all classics if you’ve been listening to them since age 13).

After a few more songs, Keith stopped the set, talked about how all of this converges about the rich billionaires making laws on the rest of us. He talked about how people work hard to live normal lives and get out to see a show like this. He said that after so many years, he has never seen the “RICH” class, just rip away everything from the working class, as if we were all criminals who don’t deserve to be rich. He pointed out how, over the last several months, he has seen rights stripped away from people for the first time in his life. Keith then pointed out that at his age of 70, he lives off his social security, and just wants to make enough on tour to stash away to pay his rent. We all cheered at him for his honesty and the fact that he was just like the rest of us. Then the drumsticks went at it, with “Don’t Care”, then “Live Fast, Die Young”, and ironically “Paid Vacation”.

For another break, Keith talked about this next song, bringing them the ONLY sort of hit in their repertoire, we knew it was time for “Wild In The Streets” that I had no idea was a Garland Jeffreys cover. This song is just under 3 minutes, so we had about a minute more fun with this one.

A stint of 5 more songs in 10 minutes, I was looking at the clock above the monitor’s desk, wondering if we were going to make it, at 38 minutes into the set.

Once we were at “Red Tape”, and a one-liner that escaped me, it just made all of us laugh. Keith said they were going to do a handful of Black Flag covers. They gave us some great renditions of “Depression”, “Revenge”, and “Nervous Breakdown”. We were getting all kinds of great punk rock history this evening, the last song was so well done, it is one of the songs The Circle Jerks has done for years, and is an audience favorite.

They closed out with my 2nd fave song of theirs, “What’s Your Problem”, I had been waiting on this one, and it was AWESOME, and the “Question Authority”. It was 4 minutes to 11 when they were done, we managed to do the whole set together, with Keith’s political statements, stories, and fun rants.

Everyone was cooling down and walking out; the bouncers were giving each other high fives for a difficult, chaotic job well done. Lots of hugs between everyone in the mosh pit.

I went backstage and had a word with the band, Keith signed my 7” of “Sweet Transvestite” he had sang with T.S.O.L. I didn’t bring any of my other vinyls or CDs; I just wanted this one (Red Vinyl) signed. Another longtime fan was asking me about it, not knowing it had just been released a few months earlier. The band was happy to sign my autograph book, and I got a fist bump from everyone.

Walking out of the venue, I met Adolescents and got to tell Tony how good he still sounded after so many years.

I talked to John Brannon for a minute, we connected on Facebook, and I learned that we had several mutual friends, he said “Any friend of Frank Meyer (FEAR) is a friend of mine”.

All in all, it was an incredible evening, two bands I have loved for years and seen before, and one that flew under the radar, and had broken up by the time I got into punk.

For any old school punk fans, you would LOVE seeing any of them live, so, snag a gig any time you see them rolling through your town, if anything, you’ll feel young again. I guess that’s what punk does to us all.

http://www.circlejerks.net/

https://www.blackflagband.com

https://www.theadolescents.net

#thecirclejerks #keithmorris #theminutemen #blackflag #negativeapproach #adolescents

Concert Review

Artist: Big Country

Date: September 7 2025

Venue: The Egyptian Theater

City: Park City Utah

I NEVER TOOK THE SMILE AWAY FROM ANYBODY’S FACE
There are those bands that just “Appeared” in your life, and have always shown up in cycles over the years. For me, one such band is Scotland’s “Big Country”. I heard them for the first time in January 1987, in a small town in the mountains of southeastern Utah, while driving to a friend’s place in sub-zero temperatures. I just remember 9 feet of snow on the streets, and wondering how in the hell I ended up in such a miserable place, from the only real home I knew in northern Virginia just a few months earlier. My brother put in a cassette of “The Crossing,” and I pretty much fell in love with this band on that short drive across the frozen landscape. I saw the name on my brother’s tapes, but the name turned me off, as well. That town we just moved to – all they listened to was country and bad metal. Once I learned these guys were from Glasgow, just like my father’s immediate clan, and they sounded SO AMAZING, that made my night there really wonderful, and thus, a love for Big Country was born. Through the years of Mike Peters of “The Alarm” playing with them, just because HE LOVED THEM, the death of Stuart Adamson, changeovers and borrowed band members from so many other great bands, they have made history more than once.

When on my LDS Mission in Germany, they played in a venue that was in the same massive centrum as my apartment. I could go out of my apartment’s ground floor, go down a little hallway, and it was backstage to “Das Capital” in Hannover, Germany. 3 times I wandered through there when bands I liked were playing, and I met Marillion (Without FISH), then I met FISH two weeks later. Before that, I walked through the hall one afternoon, as the tour bus had parked there a few hours earlier, I was honored to meet Mark Brezicki and Bruce Watson, just coming through the hall. I got a quick 3 min chat and was thrilled to have met these guys. That was in late 1995.

Fast forward to summer 2025, and to my surprise, the local theater, in another little city up in the mountains of central Utah, was hosting Big Country for a four-night residency. Somehow it’s all coming full circle, the band had just finished 6 weeks with the “Lost 80s Live” tour, with Modern English, Josie Cotton, and some other great bands. So, for them to make a stop here, and hang out for a few days just before heading home was going to be, for me anyway, nothing short of monumental.

I had been in touch with current vocalist Simon Hough, who took the reins of the singer as the band tried to rise from the ashes of the death of Stewart Adamson. We arranged for me to shoot the gig, the day after the Billy Idol gig, yeah, this was a very busy week. I jabbed Simon about being a “Manc”, but he could prove himself playing with some “Glaswegians”.

The Egyptian Theater is on Historic Main Street, in Park City, Utah it is an old, quaint postcard town, with a couple of outdoor amphitheaters, and was home to the “Sundance Film Festival” til just recently. The Egyptian Theater is themed as just that, with the ancient Egyptian art as the motif for everything. It was built during the silver mining explosion of the great rushes in the late 1800s. This place has amazing acoustics, and you could honestly play an out of tune hurdy-gurdy here and it would sound AWESOME.

The stage was set up to make it look more like it would be a folk gig, and I was hoping it was going to be a pretty charged show, though Simon mentioned online he had a bit of a head cold earlier in the week, and was hoping it didn’t interfere with his performance.

Opening the set, Mark Brezeki the original drummer walked out to the mic, and welcomed everyone, and mentioned that they would be doing a set covering several different phases of their catalog over the years, with everyone applauding the rest of the band took the stage, and they opened the set with “Harvest Home” from their first album “The Crossing”, one of the songs that hooked me when I first heard them. With their signature guitar that sounds almost like bagpipes, and Simon singing live, his voice is not exactly like Stuart’s, but it gives a great tribute. I was taking photos, and singing along the lines “JUST AS YOU SEW SHALL YE REAP!! TO THE HARVEST HOME!!”, this was my inner 12-year-old rocking out.

Trying to just take it in that I was finally seeing Big Country live, they pulled out a wonderful, lesser-played gem “Winter Sky”, one of those “Album Cuts” that, while listening to cassettes, you wouldn’t fast forward through, a great song that never made the hit list, but just a loved piece of music.

Another few songs off the “Breakthrough” album, “Steeltown”, “Come Back To Me” then “Just A Shadow” were taking the entire venue back to some wonderful memories. This was not a “Nostalgia” show, but more a few hundred people sharing the same experiences we all once had through music in our younger days. But this time, this, at this moment, with these people in the mountains of Utah, was so powerful. There is nothing more moving than the shared experience. I’ve had them at concerts with other punters, where we all became one with something the band did. From Peter Murphy to U2, this Big Country moment was worth hugging everyone over.

Having the first 4 songs power up the vibe, and I was thinking that this show was for the history books, we got to hear some of the later work “Fragile Thing” from 1998’s“Driving To Damascus”, an album that flew under the radar for many, but the songs were solid, and some great work. Then they played “Hold The Heart” off my fave Big Country album of all time, “The Seer”, I was getting excited about where this might go, with a specific song I had in mind.

They stopped for a bit, and Simon began talking about how they managed to get together as Big Country again. Saying that he had some big shoes to fill in Stuart’s position. He said he never could see himself even being able to fill those shoes. He said he was honored to be in this band and to continue paying tribute to Stuart Adamson, and he really wanted that legacy to live on in the fans. He then said that they were going to play a few songs that were from “The Raphaels”, the band Stuart was in during his American Country & Western phase. To be honest, I hadn’t listened to those records he made, so this was all new to me. They played “Private Battlefield”, and “Learning to Row”.These songs were powerful and beautiful. Imagine Big Country, with a noticeable Celtic influence, and just slow and easy country, more “Western” than country. They were very moving, showcasing Stuart’s later work.

Then they pulled out the most obscure song, “13 Valleys,” that I believe can only be found in the box set. Nothing about this setlist was expected so far, songs you haven’t heard for years, or even rare B-sides. They closed out this first part of the set with “Tall Ships Go”, having played most of “Steeltown” and played all of it so well, I think everyone needed a good breather, they told us they were coming back to play more of the classics.

A few minutes later, Big Country returned to the stage, and Simon said “Thank you all so much for sticking around, let’s do this”, then Mark brought his sticks down hard and the formidable bassline of the well known classic “Peace In Our Time”, had me singing along, knowing it was too loud for anyone to hear me, cause I’m sure I was out of key.

Back into familiar territory and to my fave album, they played “Look Away”, this was just as powerful as the first time I heard it in 86. One of those songs that you just can’t get over how it hits you, with the guitar lines, and the verses, the lyrics were always something wonderful from these guys.

The haunting guitar lines with the signature guitar sound mixing, and the notable bassline, we got “Lost Patrol” from the debut album “The Crossing”. This is one of the many songs where the bass line stands out, and you can hear the bassist leading the song, kind of a cool tool they used throughout so much of the catalog. “Lost Patrol” has almost the most pagan vibe to it, 2nd only to the title track of “The Seer”.

“Wonderland” was a great hit that had weaved itself into the singles collections, and lots of radio play on the alternative station in Salt Lake, carried us through. By this late in the set, Simon said, “Ok, I’m going to need your help with this one,” with instructions on how to sing the chorus with him. Again with a strong bass-line and the funky xylophone sounding guitar, we were into “Chance” from proably my 2nd song of theirs. It is about a woman who “Played chance with a lifetime’s romance, and the price was far too high”. A man who sees how the years have changed people, ripped away opportunities, made us grow old, lose our beauty, vitality, youth, and even a sense of purpose. By the 3rd chorus he asked us to sing along “Oh Lord, where did the feeling go?” then we would chant “2, 3, 4”, “Oh Lord, I never felt so low”.Powerful in its own right, with the venue chanting this between singing the lines, it all felt like we were in this together, feeling the same shame and grief as the song when it was first written.

Simon then introduced the band, with Mark Brezicki on drums (Original member), Gil Allen also from “The Skids” pre Big Country, no surprise there, but the big surprise was Ken Nicol on guitar, from “Steeleye Span”. I freaked out about that, to be honest, I am a big fan of theirs too, some real legends on the stage here, as the band’s personnel history is legendary.

They turned it up to “Eleven” now, and played “Fields of Fire”, everyone was dancing, and I am sure this was the loudest music ever played in the Egyptian Theater, that bassline, leading, with the rhythm guitar, then signature bagpipe guitar on top, Simon had all of us dancing, as he sang with all the vigor he had been saving up all week blasting it out in “ON FIELDS OF FIRE!!!”, I’m afraid for what the personnel changes over the years, songwriting masterpieces, and great live show, tonight, Big Country was telling everyone it doesn’t get better than this.

They left the stage to some roaring appreciation from the punters, who had high expectations, but never expected this. They returned a few minutes later, Mark grabbed his microphone on his drum kit and said, “Ok, everyone, we didn’t expect this, really. This is our last song tonight, but please go to the foyer after the show, we want to meet all of you”. Then they played “In A Big Country” with all the intensity they could muster, which we heard when they all sang “you can’t stay here when every single hope you had is shattered”. I think the fact that they were playing on a mountainside, out in the middle of nowhere (half an hour from Salt Lake), was what brought the rest out of those guys tonight.

Big Country walked off the stage, and as we all congregated in the lobby, everyone was sacking the merch table, and we waited for the band to come meet us.

They came into the lobby, and I approached Simon and reached out to shake hands. Though we hadn’t met yet, he knew who I was. I was surprised when he just grabbed me and hugged me. Simon was so pumped, so thrilled, so proud of the show they had just given us. I realized he was so emotionally high that I don’t know what would have brought him down. He thanked me over and over for the support and had a perma smile. I told him that they had done a great set, and he just said over and over, “I know, it was fucking fantastic, wasn’t it?”. You can’t really say much more in that situation. He was floating about 10 inches off the floor; he was so happy. Frankly, if a band can deliver a set like that, with the lead singer still going through a head cold, those guys had everything in the world to be proud of.

I talked to Mark for a minute, and I told Allen that I worship Maddy Prior (singer of Steeleye Span), and he assured me she is a sweetheart. We all took selfies, and everyone was closing the night of a beaudacious set, by meeting the guys who gave us such magic.

Big Country will hopefully cross the pond and grace us again on a tour, and I hope you all get to see them should they come to a city near you. The music is timeless, and in the end, they did Stuart Adamson and everyone else right.

Thanks so much, fellas. Please, can we do that again sometime?

https://facebook.com/inabigcountry

https://www.facebook.com/simonvandownham

#bigcountry #simonhough #lost80slive