Meant to get this up at the one year mark, but you know, life gets in the way. Wrote it on the flight home from the show.
12:32, Monday, Sept. 19, 2016, above Midway Airport, Chicago, IL
Give me a moment...
Some hours ago (as of this writing), Chicago Tribune reporter Greg Kot let loose a review of The Misfits' show at Chicago's Riot Fest as "not all that historic," in which, he took not-so-subtle shots at, quite literally, everything to do with the performance. He slighted the band's appearance, the stage set, ...their choices of fill-in musicians ("ringers" he called them), Doyle's stage name, the subject matter of songs that he's taken no other notice of in the nearly 40 years since they were written, Glenn's stage banter during frequent breaks to catch his breath, and how a couple of more recent artists who played earlier in the day had "spruced things up a bit Sunday." We get it; you're not a fan. The article was clearly a reporter's response to the build-up and hype surrounding the reunion. Everyone has a job to do, and he did his. He didn't like it. That's fine. The Misfits are not everyone's cup of tea. I get that. I have friends who hate them. And I mean hate them. That's fine. But they didn't go last night, because they probably wouldn't have liked it either. In that regard, I appreciate the fact that Kot experienced this spectacle from "a football field away," giving at least one more fan who was there with an emotional attachment to something rather than for the sheer curiosity of it, the chance to be a few feet closer to something they had waited a lifetime to see and will likely never get to see again.
I'm not going to skirt around the fact that I'm a fan, its why I was there. I am a huge Misfits fan, a Samhain fan, a Danzig fan, a Kryst the Conqueror fan, a reformed Misfits fan, an M25 fan, a Project 1950 fan, a Gorgeous Frankenstein fan, a Doyle fan, I never picked sides, I don't hate Jerry, I don't hate Glenn, neither walk on water, I have no issues at all with Graves or Chud and am a fan of theirs too. I could go on and on and on about my complete lack of interest in Misfits drama. I drank the kool-aid and tried every subsequent flavor. It's not all great, it's not even all good, but the gems... there are a lot of gems. Having seen Danzig 3 times, the Graves-era Misfits 3 times, and the post-Graves revolving door Misfits 3 times, I've got some thing to compare what I witnessed last night to. I was lucky enough to catch the Long Way Back From Hell tour in a small theater, which I would argue was Glenn's performing peak. It was flawless. I was also lucky enough to catch the newly reformed Misfits prior the release of American Psycho in a club not not much bigger than last night's sound booth, with Jerry and Doyle at their closest, and in top shape. It was insanity at its finest. Reading the announcement of the two reunion shows gave me chills and extremely mixed feelings. On the one hand, it's something that I never even dreamed would happen; I thought that maybe I'd get to catch a Danzig show where he finally did some of the old stuff, or that I would once again check out Jerry's band rip through a ton of songs that I could enjoy with just about anyone singing them. But seeing THE Misfits? It was never even a pipe dream.
Then the announcement came, completely out of the blue. This is actually happening. Reading it, I felt like I was in 7th grade again, relishing in the discovery of something new, 4 years after it had ended. My wife and I put in for a couple days vacation on the spot, bought tickets, booked airfare and a room. We spent more money than we had any reasonable right for our young family to do. Supported throughout our youth (hell, throughout our lives) by punk rock, and being true lovers of all types of live music, we rationalized it by looking at the 3 days of Riot Fest as a true bucket list of bands that we had missed every previous chance to see, and as a 4 day, kid-less vacation, which we both needed and deserved. It decimated our live music budget, but for us, it was worth every penny. I even sold 2 guitars and some other gear so we would have cash for the weekend (Jim, I guess I really do owe you for your half of that black Kramer now).
Then the wondering. Would they make it past the first show? Would the whole thing implode before Chicago? Will they even acknowledge each other on stage? God, is this going to suck? I'll freely admit that each subsequent time I've seen Danzig, I thought the performance he gave was less impressive than the one before. That's not a complaint, nor am I saying that he or his band weren't good, nothing could be further from the truth. That 1990 show was just really that good. He always gives his all, putting on an unforgettable show, and I'd go see him again tomorrow, knowing full well that I'd more than get my money's worth. I'll also freely admit that each time that I've seen the "new" Misfits since Michale Graves left, my expectations have not been met, but those expectations were extraordinarily high. Jerry and all the bands that he assembles put on a great show, and I cough up my hard-earned money to see them anytime I can. The passion that Jerry Only has for the music, his love for the Misfits' fans and the individual attention he makes a concerted effort to give them, and his consciousness of the amount of joy he brings to them by keeping the mere idea of the Misfits alive and those songs on a stage more than make up for what I personally perceive as his shortcomings as a singer.
And then came Denver. I had told myself that I would spend the two intervening weeks until Chicago avoiding subpar cell phone videos with terrible sound so as not to taint my expectations. Then some Reddit user posted a picture of the Denver setlist on a Riot Fest thread. I saw that it included Hybrid Moments and I just couldn't help myself. Then the comments began about long breaks and Glenn being out of breath, the pacing being slow, and how Glenn's stage banter was stupid, and the cheesy giant pumpkins, and COME ON ALREADY!! I got the impression that people were expecting them to relive Evilive (the only official live document of the original misfits), which, if we're being honest, sounds truly awful, and was recorded at the height of the era all of these so-called fans profess a desire to relive. Glenn was 26 (not 61), Jerry was 22 (not 57), and Doyle was 17 (not 52) and guess what? The break you hear on that 13 minute record is long, Glenn is out of breath, the stage banter is stupid, and the pacing of those 7 songs (oh, sorry, you got he 12 track version?), I mean of those 12 songs is all over the place. But the energy on those few recordings is infectious. That's what those guys gave us last night. Everything that they have of those 26, 22, and 17 year old hearts, along with the knowledge of what those songs mean to so many people, was in every single note they played. So Glenn had to take a few breathers. Big deal. So the sound was a little questionable for the first third or so of the set. Who cares. When they were playing, they were on. We got more last night than Evilive ever gave us.
Having played in bands, you always want to sound your best. You always want everything to work. You always want every little thing to fall into place. The fact is, that, rarely, if ever, does that happen. Especially when you're at breakneck speed. Last night was not about perfection. It was about an experience. I read an interview Glenn did after the two reunion shows were announced and he spoke about the recent losses of Prince and David Bowie and how it made him think about their fans who never had the chance to see them. If it's true, I'd like to thank Prince (who I did get to see) and Bowie (who I did not), not only for what they gave the world, but for any hand that they might have had in what I got to experience last night. It was not perfect. What it was was everything that the 12 year old me could have ever imagined it could be, plus there were giant pumpkins. So I guess the Chicago Tribune got one thing right, it was "not all that historic." It was fucking epic, like a dry desert soaking up rain, soaking up sun.
Give me a moment...
Some hours ago (as of this writing), Chicago Tribune reporter Greg Kot let loose a review of The Misfits' show at Chicago's Riot Fest as "not all that historic," in which, he took not-so-subtle shots at, quite literally, everything to do with the performance. He slighted the band's appearance, the stage set, ...their choices of fill-in musicians ("ringers" he called them), Doyle's stage name, the subject matter of songs that he's taken no other notice of in the nearly 40 years since they were written, Glenn's stage banter during frequent breaks to catch his breath, and how a couple of more recent artists who played earlier in the day had "spruced things up a bit Sunday." We get it; you're not a fan. The article was clearly a reporter's response to the build-up and hype surrounding the reunion. Everyone has a job to do, and he did his. He didn't like it. That's fine. The Misfits are not everyone's cup of tea. I get that. I have friends who hate them. And I mean hate them. That's fine. But they didn't go last night, because they probably wouldn't have liked it either. In that regard, I appreciate the fact that Kot experienced this spectacle from "a football field away," giving at least one more fan who was there with an emotional attachment to something rather than for the sheer curiosity of it, the chance to be a few feet closer to something they had waited a lifetime to see and will likely never get to see again.
I'm not going to skirt around the fact that I'm a fan, its why I was there. I am a huge Misfits fan, a Samhain fan, a Danzig fan, a Kryst the Conqueror fan, a reformed Misfits fan, an M25 fan, a Project 1950 fan, a Gorgeous Frankenstein fan, a Doyle fan, I never picked sides, I don't hate Jerry, I don't hate Glenn, neither walk on water, I have no issues at all with Graves or Chud and am a fan of theirs too. I could go on and on and on about my complete lack of interest in Misfits drama. I drank the kool-aid and tried every subsequent flavor. It's not all great, it's not even all good, but the gems... there are a lot of gems. Having seen Danzig 3 times, the Graves-era Misfits 3 times, and the post-Graves revolving door Misfits 3 times, I've got some thing to compare what I witnessed last night to. I was lucky enough to catch the Long Way Back From Hell tour in a small theater, which I would argue was Glenn's performing peak. It was flawless. I was also lucky enough to catch the newly reformed Misfits prior the release of American Psycho in a club not not much bigger than last night's sound booth, with Jerry and Doyle at their closest, and in top shape. It was insanity at its finest. Reading the announcement of the two reunion shows gave me chills and extremely mixed feelings. On the one hand, it's something that I never even dreamed would happen; I thought that maybe I'd get to catch a Danzig show where he finally did some of the old stuff, or that I would once again check out Jerry's band rip through a ton of songs that I could enjoy with just about anyone singing them. But seeing THE Misfits? It was never even a pipe dream.
Then the announcement came, completely out of the blue. This is actually happening. Reading it, I felt like I was in 7th grade again, relishing in the discovery of something new, 4 years after it had ended. My wife and I put in for a couple days vacation on the spot, bought tickets, booked airfare and a room. We spent more money than we had any reasonable right for our young family to do. Supported throughout our youth (hell, throughout our lives) by punk rock, and being true lovers of all types of live music, we rationalized it by looking at the 3 days of Riot Fest as a true bucket list of bands that we had missed every previous chance to see, and as a 4 day, kid-less vacation, which we both needed and deserved. It decimated our live music budget, but for us, it was worth every penny. I even sold 2 guitars and some other gear so we would have cash for the weekend (Jim, I guess I really do owe you for your half of that black Kramer now).
Then the wondering. Would they make it past the first show? Would the whole thing implode before Chicago? Will they even acknowledge each other on stage? God, is this going to suck? I'll freely admit that each subsequent time I've seen Danzig, I thought the performance he gave was less impressive than the one before. That's not a complaint, nor am I saying that he or his band weren't good, nothing could be further from the truth. That 1990 show was just really that good. He always gives his all, putting on an unforgettable show, and I'd go see him again tomorrow, knowing full well that I'd more than get my money's worth. I'll also freely admit that each time that I've seen the "new" Misfits since Michale Graves left, my expectations have not been met, but those expectations were extraordinarily high. Jerry and all the bands that he assembles put on a great show, and I cough up my hard-earned money to see them anytime I can. The passion that Jerry Only has for the music, his love for the Misfits' fans and the individual attention he makes a concerted effort to give them, and his consciousness of the amount of joy he brings to them by keeping the mere idea of the Misfits alive and those songs on a stage more than make up for what I personally perceive as his shortcomings as a singer.
And then came Denver. I had told myself that I would spend the two intervening weeks until Chicago avoiding subpar cell phone videos with terrible sound so as not to taint my expectations. Then some Reddit user posted a picture of the Denver setlist on a Riot Fest thread. I saw that it included Hybrid Moments and I just couldn't help myself. Then the comments began about long breaks and Glenn being out of breath, the pacing being slow, and how Glenn's stage banter was stupid, and the cheesy giant pumpkins, and COME ON ALREADY!! I got the impression that people were expecting them to relive Evilive (the only official live document of the original misfits), which, if we're being honest, sounds truly awful, and was recorded at the height of the era all of these so-called fans profess a desire to relive. Glenn was 26 (not 61), Jerry was 22 (not 57), and Doyle was 17 (not 52) and guess what? The break you hear on that 13 minute record is long, Glenn is out of breath, the stage banter is stupid, and the pacing of those 7 songs (oh, sorry, you got he 12 track version?), I mean of those 12 songs is all over the place. But the energy on those few recordings is infectious. That's what those guys gave us last night. Everything that they have of those 26, 22, and 17 year old hearts, along with the knowledge of what those songs mean to so many people, was in every single note they played. So Glenn had to take a few breathers. Big deal. So the sound was a little questionable for the first third or so of the set. Who cares. When they were playing, they were on. We got more last night than Evilive ever gave us.
Having played in bands, you always want to sound your best. You always want everything to work. You always want every little thing to fall into place. The fact is, that, rarely, if ever, does that happen. Especially when you're at breakneck speed. Last night was not about perfection. It was about an experience. I read an interview Glenn did after the two reunion shows were announced and he spoke about the recent losses of Prince and David Bowie and how it made him think about their fans who never had the chance to see them. If it's true, I'd like to thank Prince (who I did get to see) and Bowie (who I did not), not only for what they gave the world, but for any hand that they might have had in what I got to experience last night. It was not perfect. What it was was everything that the 12 year old me could have ever imagined it could be, plus there were giant pumpkins. So I guess the Chicago Tribune got one thing right, it was "not all that historic." It was fucking epic, like a dry desert soaking up rain, soaking up sun.
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