Oh fuckin' god YES!

Just got back from seein’ Social D at the House of Blues right near here, at Downtown Disney. My old buddy Sean came up from Phoenix to join in the festivities. We saw, by and far, the GREATEST concert-going experience EVER!

Just before breaking into "I wasn’t born a follower", Mike Ness made a speech about Joe Strummer (recently deceased lead singer of The Clash). He said they "didn’t just bitch and whine like those damned pistols. They went out and said something, had solutions - they tackled politics, racism, war… they knew what was up. And, I gotta say, we need more of that now. We need to stand up against this shit that’s goin’ on. We need a change - we don’t need that fuckin’ Bush." Everyone cheers, loudly. Mike continues "…ehh, don’t blame him - he’s just a puppet anyway" and the song begins.

After the song, Ness looks out into the crowd, just to the left of where Sean and I were standing - and he says into the mic "I don’t like bullies. It looks like we’ve got some bullies here tonight" and then after some muddled yells from a select few (maybe just one, I couldn’t tell) people in the crowd, Mike says "Fuck ME? No… fuck YOU!". Then he takes his mic off the stand, and says "you got so much to say? why don’t you come up here and say it? I’ll give you the mic - you say something, since you’ve just gotta keep yelling". The guy struggles to make his way through the crowd, Ness says "Guys, let this motherfucker through… I wanna hear this".

The guy gets to the barricade just before the stage, Mike walks up to the edge of the stage, kneels down, pissed off look in his eyes "Alright asshole, you’ve got something to say? Well, here - say something!" and CHUCKS the mic right at the guy’s head - you can actually hear the amplified "THUMP!" when it hits him on the head. At this point, I was already shocked - I mean, how many singers, nay, PEOPLE would have the sheer cajones to not only stop a show to talk to an obviously drunk asshole bully, but also GIVE that guy a microphone; a device that could VERY easily be thrown right back at him, and Ness didn’t even shift his foot - he just knelt there.

Now, the guy finally speaks…. rather, he yells "FUUUUUUUCK MIKE, FUUUUUUUCK SOCIAL D". You can see the fuckin’ passionate rage in Mike’s eyes at this point. This asshole is the same bully you see everywhere, all throughout your life. This is the motherfucker that exists just to ruin everyone else’s good time. Mike’s one hardcore, old-school SoCal punk - tempered in the streets, sauteed in political anger… and staring in the face of the enemy.

The guy continues "Seriously Mike, I think you’re a nice guy and all - I like your band, but dude… if you say one more word about Bush our President, I’m gonna have to light you…" before this fuck can even finish - Ness, in one fell swoop, pulls his guitar strap off, jumps straight up into the air and plants his boots right into this guy’s head while landing on him. All I saw from my vantage point was the houselights going on, and at first the fists of Mike Ness, then the unified fists, feet, elbows of everyone in the crowd. This was time for a mauling. I saw this fuck before Mike even pointed him out - this guy had been all up in the face of everyone. Hell, if you’ve ever been to a concert, you’ve seen this guy’s ilk before. Tonight, I saw him fall and I loved every minute of it.

The mauling consumed about 5 minutes, their was an energy, a fury, a rage, a passion in the air so thick you could cut it. It filled everyone up, I couldn’t stop grabbing Sean - yelling at him - him yelling at me - nothing in particular, just "DUUUUDE. HOLY FUCK. THIS IS THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD"… but in a yell, in a passionate scream that I only wish everyone could experience at least once in their life.

Ness got back up on stage. "Fuckin’ asshole messed up my hair. Guys - give him back his $15 or whatever it was he paid, I don’t want him here.. get him the FUCK out." As the guy is "escorted" out, he keeps dropping to the floor, beat and bloodied. People kept hitting him, kicking him. But he couldn’t move - his arms were tied behind his backs, and he was alone in a crowd of people who’d had enough of him and his ilk. Social D busted into Sick Boy, and I’ve never felt more alive in my life. And I felt safe, cause I knew, as we all did - that assholes wouldn’t be allowed here. Mike Ness stood up, not only for a strong political viewpoint, against the system that keeps us all down - but he stood up for anyone who’d ever been bullied, anyone who just wanted to have a good time, and was stripped of that right on account of machismo, beer-swilling jock-mentality assholes.

I always thought to myself, if I were putting on a concert, up there singin’ away and I saw some bully, I would make sure he was thrown out and humiliated and make it a point that people knew I didn’t want his ilk’s dirty money. That they can keep it. If their spending money on my CD’s, and concerts means the rest of an audience, or world has to put up with them - and if I have to live with being a soundtrack for assholes like that - I didn’t want it. Mike Ness drove home that point tonight - not just with what happened above, but with what happened just before the end of the show as well.

Mike pulls $15 out of his back pocket and says "Guards - take this guy outta here, fuckin’ bully motherfucker, before i take him out myself". He wads up the $15, tosses it at the guy, and continues "There. I don’t want your fuckin’ money. You keep it. Did you pay $15 to come here and fuck with me? And fuck with these people? Fuckin’ asshole". The guards lift him up over the railing, obviously trying to save him the beating an audience full of pissed off punk-lovers gave the last asshole bully. Ness goes on.. "Take that money and go buy another FatBurger, you fat fuck! Go watch some Girls Gone Wild tapes and play with your little dinky-ass prick, you fuckin’ stupid dick".

Everyone cheers, and the show goes on. I could go on and on about how well the songs were played, the energy in the crowd, the wonderful, passionate speeches that Ness made - but it wouldn’t be the same, you weren’t there (well, not that I know of anyway). I realized tonight - that what I saw, what I experienced - THAT is where punk lives. It’s not in a commercial. It’s not in a bottle of "Punky" hair dye. It’s not in a ripped punk shirt w/safety pins holding it together. It’s in the passions, minds, hearts, and sinews of the underground that is constantly held down by an unfair and totally fucked up system in need of a change. I probably sound like a raving lunatic. But, hell - I just can’t say it any other way right now. I feel very alive.

Mix all of that with the fact that Sean and I spent the better part (4+ hours) working on "Drown me in Lidocaine" (a new song I just wrote the lyrics to last week) before going off to the show, and having not had an old-fashioned intimate jam session w/Sean for over 6 years, I feel fuckin’ great right now. Hopefully we’ll be able to lay down some vocals and guitars tomorrow (since he leaves Tuesday) and I can finish the song up soon afterwards. My voice is still shot to shit - I don’t think I’ve screamed like I did tonight in years. Goodnight :)

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