Black Flag, Greg Ginn & The Royal We
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Triple Rock Social Club, Minneapolis, MN
Click on any of the pictures to see more photos of the respective band over at my Flickr site.
Way back in the
summer of 1985 I had a ticket to see the Henry Rollins-fronted Black Flag play
at a boathouse in Cedar Falls, Iowa; I missed the show due to a family
vacation, sold my ticket to a friend, and never once did I ever again think I’d
have the chance to see this iconic punk band play live. Nearly 30 years later,
founder, guitarist, and only constant band member Greg Ginn assembled a new
version of the band. Other ex-members of the band have been touring as Flag,
but Greg Ginn’s version is the real deal.
Greg Ginn using a theremin.
I missed opener Cinema Cinema, but arrived in time for
Ginn to walk on stage to introduce his solo project, Greg Ginn & The Royal
We as “sensitivity training” before seeing Black Flag. Ginn’s other bands and
projects have always veered into eclectic territory, but The Royal We was a
real head scratcher. All instrumental, the set consisted of Ginn playing along
to prerecorded tracks with a cold, mechanical feel accompanied by a TV monitor
that ran a mix abstract images, black and white movie clips, and World War II
footage. When not playing guitar Ginn fooled around with a theremin, an old,
hands-free, noise-generating instrument capable of producing all sorts of
spooky, bizarre sounds. It was interesting at best, and the crowd responded
with mild, yet respective applause.
It didn’t take long
for Black Flag to take the stage with a short instrumental introduction that
led into “Rise Above”, one of the band’s signature fast anthems that
immediately worked the crowd into a frenzy. Current vocalist, professional
skateboarder Mike Vallely, rarely spoke to the crowd, and the band seemed
intensely focused throughout the set, as if they had something to prove after
being away for so long. The entire performance was tight, and audience went
nuts as the band ripped through expected classics like “Gimme Gimme Gimme”,
“Six Pack”, “Slip It In”, and “TV Party”. A great selection of songs was
brought out; my personal favorites being “Black Coffee”, “Annihilate”, and
“Damaged”. All told, Black Flag played 20 songs before being called back for
the encore of “Louie Louie”, which had Ginn swap his guitar with bass player
Tyler Smith to become Dale Nixon (the name credited to his bass playing on
albums). Ginn passed the bass off to Vallely near the end of the song to hop
into the audience, where he remained after the show to speak and take pictures
with fans.
The half-filled
room was a disappointment (shouldn’t this have sold out??), but the fiery,
take-no-prisoners performance was everything I had hoped for. Legal disputes
with Flag (settled out of court in Ginn’s favor) seem to have divided Black
Flag fans. Sarah Stanley-Ayre published a harsh, negative review of this show
over at City Pages that left me
befuddled. It would seem logical that as the band’s founder, primary
songwriter, and only consistent member, Greg Ginn should have the sole right to
the Black Flag name and any associated images and logos. To say that the
current version of Black Flag “wasn’t Black Flag”, and that “The whole thing
felt like watching a cover band who was incredibly well-practiced” is probably
exactly how I would describe Flag (if I gave a crap about seeing them). I take
issue with too many of the inaccuracies and descriptions of this review to
detail them all here.
What Flag
did—assemble a cast of fleeting ex-members, bring along a hired gun guitarist,
ape the band’s logo, use the four-bars symbol on merchandise, and even call
themselves Black Flag at a “reunion show”—is embarrassing and insulting and
disrespectful to fans. In the metal world, this would be like ex-Megadeth
members Nick Menza, James Lomenzo, and Chuck Behler hiring Gamma Ray/Helloween
guitarist/vocalist Kai Hansen to take the place of Dave Mustaine, calling
themselves “Deth” (stylized in the Megadeth logo), and selling T-shirts with
mascot Vic Rattlehead. Sounds ludicrous doesn’t it?
