I got to the show early and wandered around. I kept thinking, "What the heck happened to all the punky multi-colored hair on 20-year-old boys?" Instead the crowd was a sea of pre-teen preppy girls everywhere. Must be an MxPx show.
The show opened with a trio called Too Bad Eugene, from Scott’s Valley, California. Featuring former members of Craig’s Brother, they played a short set of slow, new-school skate punk. Next up was No Motiv, who opened for Good Riddance the last time they were in town. Once they got going, they rocked.
With full use of the stage and plenty of monitor jumping, they pleased the crowd and it showed. People were going nuts, but my hunch was they were actually fighting to get a closer spot for MxPx.
The anticipation was slowly mounting. People were pushing for a spot close to the front. The sound checks took forever and soon people started moshing with no music. I was getting a little anxious because I missed MxPx’s show a while ago at Republik, and partly because I wanted to punch the whiny 15-year-old girl next to me in the head because she was screaming in my ear. When MxPx finally mounted the stage and slammed into a song from Life in General, the crowd went crazy and there were instantly six body surfers up on top of the crowd. MxPx were amazingly tight and slick.
Covering mostly stuff off their new album Slowly Going the Way of the Buffalo, you could tell there were a lot of new fans in the crowd when they played Teenage Politics, an old song, people stopped singing along.
Everyone was enjoying themselves and the girls in the crowd seemed to be screaming at Yuri the drummer between every song.
Playing tracks off their last couple of albums, a Cootees song, and a brand new song, they kept the crowd moving.
Luckily, I got pushed into whiny girl, and I laughed.
MxPx even did their popular "girl" songs like "Chick Magnet," and "Do Your Feet Hurt?" The set ended after about an hour, and they walked off stage for a quick break. MxPx does not, however, ever finish a show without playing their all-time greatest hit "Punk Rawk Show." They came back for the encore within a couple of minutes, played a Ramones cover tune, and not to disappoint, smashed into "Punk Rawk Show" to end their encore.
This three piece punk-rock outfit from Bremerton, Washington, showed us why they are signed to a major label.