It seems like at least once a year, the Palladium puts on a stacked punk rock show with a bill that catches my attention. Years ago, I dragged my wife to a Circle Jerks, Negative Approach, 7 Seconds, and Bouncing Souls show. It gave me a chance to catch up on bands I had missed or hadn’t seen in a while. This show did the same thing. This time around, Goldfinger headlined a night that saw sets from the Vandals, The Suicide Machines, Pulley, and Sullvn. It was a fun night that celebrated the endurance and timelessness of ska, punk, and what happens when you combine both.
Sullvn is a ska band from San Diego, CA. They played a style of ska similar to Goldfinger’s, but it was a little too poppy for my taste. They made sense as an opener for Goldfinger, but not for Pulley, the Suicide Machines, or the Vandals. They played a handful of laid-back ska songs, including a cover of the English Beat’s version of “Tears of a Clown” and “The Impression That I Get” by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, along with Aaron Barrett from Reel Big Fish; more from him later. Dicky stayed out and played another song he had written with the guys in Sullvn and John Feldmann from Goldfinger. While most of the night could be considered ska punk dad music, this set embraced it a little too hard.
It’s been a minute since I’ve seen Pulley. They played a set that stuck to songs from their older catalog, playing songs like “Second Best” and “Working Class Whore.” This lineup of the band sounded great, but I forgot how depressing their lyrics can be. It was great to see a good-sized crowd react to them, but they would have sounded better in a smaller venue. Alas, we cannot control the success of thirty-year-old punk rock bands finally getting their due. The Palladium’s acoustics probably weren’t built for punk rock.
The Suicide Machines played the entirety of their ska punk classic, Destruction by Definition, in celebration of its 30th anniversary. While the band has gone through many changes, this iteration of the band sounded pretty spot on. For the tour, Aggrolites drummer, Chris Borbon, is handling duties behind the kit, which meant that Jay Navarro wanted to default to him to sing “Face Values,” which he obliged and did well. Sometimes fun, sometimes poignant, but always energetic, the band blew through the seventeen songs of the record, playing up to and including their take on the Minor Threat classic, “I Don’t Wanna Hear It.” With less than a minute left, they capped the set with the more and more relevant “DDT” from Destruction by Definition‘s follow-up, Battle Hymns.
In my twenty-plus years of seeing the Vandals, I have never seen them put on a bad set. This set was no exception. They never play a bad set. Sometimes they just don’t play the song I want to hear. That being said, their song choices were pretty good. Split pretty evenly between their 1990s releases, the Vandals did play 1980s fan favorites “Urban Struggle” and “Anarchy Burger (Hold the Government).” I miss hearing “Wanna Be Manor” in their sets and their “Superficial Love” cover in the middle of it. There was a strong NOFX presence at this show. For these last couple of Vandals’ shows, Smelly from NOFX has been sitting in on drums for the ever-busy Josh Freese, giving the band the opportunity to cover and show love to one of their friends and play “The Moron Bros.” More NOFX stuff later. As with all shows, they closed their set with Warren singing a cover; this night was no exception as the band closed out the set with “I Have a Date,” a song that never gets old played live.
By the time Goldfinger got on stage, most of the crowd, whether they were too young or too old, was tired, but the band remedied that pretty fast. The band walked out to “Superman,” not their song from Tony Hawk, but the band playing the theme to the movie from the 1970s. Dan Regan and Scott Klopfenstein played the melody on their horns as the band walked out and jumped into the song “Spokesman” from 2002’s Open Your Eyes. Playing what I assume is a normal set and fitting all the hits in, they also snuck in their cover of “Just Like Heaven.”
Goldfinger had teased that this would be a special night with surprises. Halfway through the set, El Hefe came out and played “Open Your Eyes” with the band and then led into “Linoleum,” after which Feldman told the story of a band he went and saw years ago at the Barn in Riverside. That band was Reel Big Fish, and Aaron Barrett came out to play “Sell Out” and “Superman” with the band. If that wasn’t enough, they pulled Darren Pfeiffer and Simon Williams from the original lineup out to play “Anxiety,” “Answers,” and “Mable.” They closed the night with a cover of Nena’s “99 Red Balloons,” where they unleashed, you guessed it, 99 red balloons.
This show would have made a mostly great stage at a festival, without the gauntlet of being at a festival. It was very reminiscent of older days where you’d get some weird bills in the smaller venues when all these bands were starting out. Punk and ska are still very much alive, and shows like this prove it.