18-11-2008 Misfits

Supports: D.I; Venue: House of Blues, Hollywood/Los Angeles (USA)
By: Nina Mende

Here I was in Hollywood, Los Angeles, but not only for vacation. Who would I be if I don’t go to shows every once in a while? So it happened that MISFITS were playing at House of Blues at Sunset Strip, it did not even take me a second to decide: I’m going!

House of Blues is located at Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, from the outside of the venue – as well as the inside – looks like an old shack out of a horror movie. Between all the fancy and great looking restaurants and stores at Sunset this location just must be great, I thought: Three floors, a restaurant and a bar, a club floor and the stage.

Several people were already waiting in a queue as I arrived. Mostly punks and according to the shirts they wore you could tell that they are MISFITS fans.

From the inside House of Blues did not look much different, it also had the old shack style, several bars on each side and floor from where you could only get alcoholic beverages when having the K21 wristband which you could collect at the entrance.

The venue was filling up slowly but surely. The show was not sold out, but come on, it was a Tuesday night.

First band to play was D.I. , a Southern California punk band featuring ex-Adolescents and Social Distortion drummer Casey Royer on vocals. Royer formed the group after he and former Social Distortion original member Rikk Agnew, left the original Mike Ness crew.

Since forming in 1982, D.I. has had many line-up changes and Royer has been the only constant member of the band. The band once broke up and reformed, sometimes with former members of The Adolescents and Social Distortion. During their years of touring and recording albums, D.I. never gained a large mainstream success, but they have influenced many of today’s later punk groups, including F.T.E.], Face to Face, Guttermouth, Jughead’s Revenge, The Offspring and Pennywise.
They put up a great punk show, had loads of fun on stage but went through quite fast. The singer also talked fast, rushing from one song to another. The audience enjoyed it though; some people even got a mosh pit going.

Next band was MISFITS. During the change over the curtains on stage got closed again. But as Jerry Only peaked through the fans were shouting and screaming big time. This was close to the hysteria I usually get to witness at boy group shows where the girls go crazy, just that it was male punks here. 31 years of MISFITS, about 10 albums, and many fans all over the world this band has become cult.
Almost everybody at House of Blues was wearing the MISFITS skull somewhere, either as shirt, button, patch or whatever. The stage was greatly decorated. You could find the Misfits skull, the name lightened up underneath the drum set, a coffin on each side standing up right with skeletons in it, two evil looking creatures with glowing red eyes and huge spikes on the drums.

Their whole show began with the song Halloween, everybody could sing along and everybody did. They played songs from all eras and all albums, got the fans dancing and moshing big time. Some people even did crowd surfing which looked quite dangerous at times. Everybody at House of Blues had a great times with their heroes on stage, cheering and shouting, applauding a lot after every song if it was not a smooth transition to the next one, which it actually was most of the time. The show itself lasted for about an hour. The light was great, so was the sound. MISFITS played an encore of three songs. As they were done, Jerry went down to the pit and all the fans were now rushing there trying to get a hold of him, while the rest of the band left the stage and went over to their friends.

It was a really great show at an amazing venue. I am glad I had the chance to go there.

Links:
D.I MySpace
Misfits Official
Misfits MySpace