Bad Religion played at Stage AE back on November 9th, 2021. Ever since the date was announced, there was quite the back and forth in my head in order for me to decide whether or not to leave my house for the show.
With all of the venue's rules and security procedures that suck the fun out of music, the fact that Stage AE is a concrete shit house where the music sounds better on the sidewalk across the street than inside the building and their 15 percent merch cut, I was not really motivated to give them my money for a ticket in addition to the exorbitant Ticket Bastard fees.
But it was Bad Religion and another chance to see War On Women so I decided to see how resourceful I could get. Since I do drag a camera around with me for smaller shows and I do have a tendency to write about music from time to time, I figured I would try to come up with a photo pass to gain entry.
I reached out to all three bands that were playing, the venue and the promoter and the only one that got back to me was War On Women. They had no problem with making a photo pass fall off a truck for me. As a “Thank you” I offered up a bag full of vegan treats from local bakery Gluuteny.
On the day of the show, I made my way down to Pittsburgh's expendable income district with camera and donuts in tow. I was very curious to see how getting into the building was going to turn out. I have never had a great experience with Stage AE as a spectator so my expectations were not very high going in as a photographer. So I was less than surprised when I found their mismanagement spilled over to people coming into the building in a work capacity. No one had any answers to the questions that I asked about where I was and wasn't allowed to go so I kind of made it up as I went along and behaved in such a way that wouldn't raise any eyebrows.
The pictures that I took can be found here, here and here.
. . .
War On Women had the set of the night. I had only ever seen the band at smaller venues when they came through town so I was wondering how they would translate to a larger stage. I have seen established bands fall flat on their faces when playing in a place that was larger than they were accustomed to mostly because they were too far apart from each other.
War On Women did have an uphill battle getting the attention of people walking in. Due to the free cancer screenings and cavity searches that the Stage AE security gives out when the doors open it always takes forever to get people through the line and into the venue. Now with everyone fumbling around with vaccine cards and photo IDs at the door it takes even longer for people to filter in so the opening act has to go on to an almost empty room. Between everyone in the crowd putting their stuff back in their pockets, hitting the bar and merch table, finding a place to hang out for the night and the usual Pittsburgh indifference it was not going to be an easy task but War On Women grabbed the crowd by their collective shoulders and shook them.
They had zero fucks to give and brought the Punk Rock harder than any band that I have ever seen play in that room. War On Women understood the task at hand of playing in front of people that they would have to win over and by the end of their set, they did just that.
. . .
Alkaline Trio was one of those bands that I heard of over the years but never crossed paths with for whatever reason. As time went on, I had heard enough negative things about the band that any curiosity that I did have about them fizzled out so I never bothered to check them out.
By the time I had taken pictures of the band from in front of the stage, all of those negative things I had heard about Alkaline Trio were proven true. The band had no energy and seemed to be going through the paces.
The weird thing was that a large portion of the people in the crowd were wearing Alkaline Trio shirts and singing along to every word. I will be the first person to say that art is subjective and that everyone is entitled to their personal preferences and opinions but all of these people were wrong. There are some bands I just don't get and Alkaline Trio was proving themselves to be one of them.
While I was waiting outside for the doors to open, I did overhear someone say that they had never heard Bad Religion before so they tried to listen to them on their phone. They came to the conclusion that most of Bad Religion's songs sounded the same. I will concede the point that Bad Religion has a checklist that most of their songs hit but at least they're not boring.
Alkaline Trio played for almost an hour and I was so bored that I almost packed it in and headed for home. I had to keep reminding myself that Bad Religion was in my near future and I needed to hang in there for a little while longer. I got enough pictures and headed to an empty corner to keep myself out of the way until they were done.
I started having flashbacks to the year 2000 when Bad Religion was somehow the opening act for Blink-182 at the Civic Arena. After three Blink-182 songs, I said, "Fuck it," and left.
What made things worse was that Alkaline Trio had strobe lights all over the stage for some reason. I couldn't figure out if blinding the audience was an attempt to make up for being boring or what. All I know is that the strobes were annoying and made me wish that I had brought a welders mask with me.
. . .
Bad Religion hit stage with their usual explosion. They opened their set with “New Dark Ages” which is one of my favorite songs. Sadly, the crowd looked like it thinned out a bit after Alkaline Trio played but I guess there's no accounting for taste for some people.
Over all the years that I have seen them play, Bad Religion has become more and more automatic and machine like with their playing and this was another stellar set. Losing a year to the pandemic did not slow them down at all. Their rhythm section is so consistently locked in and drives the entire band. And as long as Brian Baker has been playing guitar in the band, I still get excited every time I see him and say, “Oo, oo, that guy was in Minor Threat.”
Since the original dates for this tour were to commemorate their fortieth anniversary, the setlist contained songs from almost every album. Their last album, Age Of Unreason, was now two years old so they played more of a greatest hits set than focussing on the newer songs.
I usually prefer to hear newer material when I see a band but hearing Bad Religion run through some older songs felt right to me that night. After a year of lockdown and the continued dumb-fuckery going on around us, the Punk Rock comfort food that they served up was a satisfying meal.
Bad Religion did do the livestream thing during quarantine but I couldn't bring myself to watch it. I missed live music so much last year and the thought of seeing that band play to an empty club on my computer filled me with too much sadness for me to go through with it.
They played twenty-two songs in a little more than an hour but it felt like it was over way too soon. It did feel very fitting that “American Jesus” and “We're Only Gonna Die” were the last two songs of the night because as of late that seems to be the way the American experiment is going to end.
After I ran around and got my pictures, I was able to use my photo pass to grab a prime spot in the balcony that was empty. Being able to watch Bad Religion do their thing from an arial view was amazing. I was able to fall into watching some of my Punk Rock heroes go at it and forget everything else for a bit which was a much needed catharsis.
Setlist:
1. New Dark Ages
2. Leave Mine To Me
3. Anesthesia
4. Los Angeles Is Burning
5. Fuck You
6. Chaos From Within
7. Faith Alone
8. A Walk
9. Man With A Mission
10. What It Is
11. Generator
12. Better Off Dead
13. Candidate
14. Do What You Want
15. No Control
16. I Want To Conquer The World
17. 21st Century (Digital Boy)
18. You
19. Infected
20. Sorrow
21. American Jesus
22. We're Only Gonna Die
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