It’s been 30 years since I purchased my first CD. I was rockin’ cassettes at the time, but wanted to dip my toes into the magic of CDs. I didn’t have a CD player at the time, but my parents did. Since I knew I’d eventually get one, I figured I might as well start my CD collection. That first very first CD was The Offspring’s Smash album. Ironically, I had to dub it from their CD player onto a cassette so I could listen to it. But that was ok. This was to be the first of many!
I became a big fan of this band. While I don’t have all 10+ of their albums, I do have at least 6…and all on glorious CD. I still have 100s of CDs. While I sold or gave away many over the years, I kept all the Offspring CDs and still love listening to them. Screw streaming! CDs remind me of better days. There’s nothing like consuming just one album at a time for weeks on end until you can get another. You study the lyrics, the artwork, band members, etc. You really got to know every track because you didn’t have millions of songs at your fingertips to act as background music at all times. But I digress…
Tonight (9/22/24) I got to see The Offspring live in concert. I did seem them at Woodstock ’99 as well, but it was just so damn hot and miserable that whole weekend that I really don’t count many of those performances when recalling shows of the past. And while they’ve certainly toured many times, I had somehow never had a chance to see them until now.
If you’ve read some of previous posts about 90s bands coming back around, you’ll know that my opinions have not been favorable. So many 90s bands have just been massively disappointing. But NOT the Offspring! What a great show. They’re out celebrating the 30th anniversary of “Smash.” They don’t play the whole album, but that is totally ok.
They played at Foxwoods and had no opening act so they came on stage right around 7:20 p.m. They opened up with Come Out and Play (off of Smash) which I do believe was the first tracked released off of Smash. The next song was All I Want which while coming in at only around 2 minutes long, is such a kick ass, high energy song. A couple more tunes were played and then it was time for their new single Make It All Right.
They did a lot of bantering throughout which I always say I enjoy. They talked to the crowd, did plenty of laughing, and had an overall good time. I was also surprised at how good singer Dexter Holland still sounds. He sings in a very high range that to me, seems like an unsustainable voice when singing live. Studio is one thing, but I didn’t think he’d be able to do it live especially 30 years later. I was wrong. He and the band (though only 2 original members) sounded awesome.
During one of their bantering sessions, they broke into a medley that included parts of Iron Man, Sweet Child O Mine, and Blitzkrieg Bop (which I just saw live recently when Motley Crue played it. I guess that’s a song that bands like to play).
Bad Habit was played and is a longtime favorite of mine, probably because it’s all about road rage and filled with swears. What can I say? I’m a simple creature. They played the 1st half of the song, then talked to the crowd, talked about cursing, said some choice words, and then finished the song and had us all sing along on the naughty parts. Great times! They followed this with the big ole hit Gotta Get Away. I was surprised to see a drum solo since they’re not an 80s hair band, but they had a drum solo as well and it was pretty good.
The night wouldn’t have been complete without Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) and then one of my favorites, The Kids Aren’t Alright. At this point, it had only been an hour, and they said good night. They were lying though and came back for the encore which consisted of only 2 more songs: You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid and of course Self Esteem as the closer.
It was a pretty short show considering how many songs they have. Gone Away, Smash It Up, The Meaning of Life (love this one), She’s Got Issues, Original Prankster, Hit That and many others were not played tonight. But it was quality over quantity, I guess. They could easily do what Green Day has been doing and play the album straight through, and then go into all of their other hits off the 9 other albums. I’d be ok with them playing the Ixnay on the Hombre album straight through as well. Love that one! But they beat my expectations and I had no complaints. The seats were great too (thanks Diane for the hookup!).
What’s crazy about this band is that Dexter Holland, while very successful in music, is no dummy. He also holds a PhD in Molecular Biology. I had heard about his Masters years ago, but the PhD is more recent. Hell of a fall-back plan if music doesn’t work out for him…
Anyway, get out there and get to a concert!
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