Black Flag relived The First Four Years at House of Blues with The Dickies
Black Flag, the punk rock pride of Hermosa Beach, brought their hardcore energy to fuel the pit at House of Blues on the first Thursday of the year. As the band closes in on 50 years (since their inception in 1976) they continue to shred under the flying fingers of founding member Greg Ginn and the guttural growl of front man Mike Vallely, the band’s fifth and longest tenured vocalist. With Charles Wiley on drums and Matt Baxter on bass, the band focused on material from 1981’s Damaged LP as well as from their early EPs such as Nervous Breakdown (1979), Jealous Again (1980), and Six Pack (1981).
Kicking off the night with a tight thirty minute set, The Dickies blasted through a wild assortment of crowd favorites, including Got It At The Store, You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla), and Gigantor. Leonard Graves Phillips has his performance down to a science, leading the crowd through the choruses while accompanied by a dizzying array of props apropos to each song. The “Clown Princes of Punk” got the audience engaged almost immediately, establishing the initial dimensions of the circle pit that would grow and contract throughout the night.
Once Black Flag took to the stage, the mood in the room shifted from the tongue-in-cheek silliness of the pop punk opener to something altogether deeper. While Mike V. focused his attention on his drummer, Charles, Matt, and Greg launched into an extended intro that could better be described as hardcore doom punk, opting initially for heavier, darker riffs than anything Black Flag is known for. Once Vallely did grab the mic, it soon made sense: with a range far deeper than Keith Morris and even Henry Rollins, the singer’s deep voice required a deeper version of Black Flag’s signature sound. With quite a few of the gray hairs in the crowd holding a punk rock sing-along in the front rows, the pit primarily featured sons and grandsons eager to partake in the circling ritual before erupting into frenzied moshing when the band’s sound demanded it.
After a brief respite, Black Flag returned for a second set filled with even more familiar favorites from their early catalog including Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie, TV Party (updated for streaming!), and Rise Above. The crowd kept up with the band, reducing the pit to a walking pace when necessary but never letting it die. Indeed, after the intermission the crowd definitely seemed rejuvenated (and perhaps well lubricated) and prepared to go hard through the final tunes of the evening. The combined one-two punch of these punk heavyweights definitely helped knock all stragglers into the new year!
