There’s a reason Social Distortion has been around so long: because they are just so goddamn great. I forgot just how awesome those guys are live. Mike Ness? Still kicks ass. The Crystal Ballroom was packed and about 90 degrees. The bathroom upstairs? About 115. My comrade and I walked in about 5 minutes before the Supersuckers started, just enough time to get beer and get set. The Supersuckers were really good, and we both agreed we’d go see those guys again in a second. The crowd was just what I expected: some hardcore punk rock kids, a few weirdos, but a lot of older music fans too, guys old enough to feel like they don’t have to try so hard at the shows anymore. Still, I may have been the only person in there without a tattoo. There were more girls than I expected too. At Social D shows there is a rockabilly vibe, and a lot of the girls go with a kinda weird 50’s - punk hybrid look. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, but let’s just say that in a couple of instances it really worked.

After the show I was walking to my car when some wiry greasy-haired methed up loser rode past me on his 10-speed, then did a U-turn and asked why I was looking at him, and if I had a problem. He wanted to fight. Since I am like a slightly better fed version of Gandhi I told the guy to relax and kept on walking. He followed me for a few steps and I thought he was going to take a swing. Maybe the guy came to his senses at that point; if we had gone at it the CEO would very likely have killed all 107 pounds of him. I knew that with the Chief Educator back in town my corpse disposal options were limited, so I was very happy when the stupid tweaker backed off.