Bad Religion - Bristol O2 Academy - 7th August 2010
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Written by Rob Sleigh
The when, where and who questions that surround the origins of punk rock music are still widely debated to this day and the same old names continue to be thrown around whenever the argument is brought up. Bands like the Clash and the Ramones were successful for a short while in their day and are still remembered by many as the most influential of the genre. Then there are others like the Sex Pistols who, despite often being hailed as one of the greatest groups of their time, actually only released one album before disappearing in a puff of hype, only to return almost twenty years later to shamelessly capitalise on their bygone success.
LA punkers Bad Religion, on the other hand, celebrate their 30th anniversary this year and, while they may have initially been a couple of years late for the party, they have barely taken a year off since and their career has spanned almost the entire history of punk rock. They were one of the earliest bands to popularise melodic punk music, which has continued to prove relevant to the myriad of pop-punk groups that have been and gone since. In addition to the obvious influence that Bad Religion have provided, they have even been responsible for kickstarting the successful careers of numerous punk rock bands in recent years. Epitaph Records was founded in the late ‘80s by Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz to release the band’s own records. The label went on to have success with some of its earliest signings, including Offspring, Rancid and NOFX. It is now one of the largest independent record companies in the world and recent signings have included Weezer, Alkaline Trio and New Found Glory.
Tonight’s show in Bristol, which makes up part of Bad Religion’s 30th anniversary tour, comes only a month ahead of their forthcoming studio album ‘The Dissent of Man’. However, the band have chosen to leave their new songs to one side for now and concentrate on the last three decades instead. Walking onto the stage in front of a huge backdrop of their trademark Crossbuster logo, Bad Religion start their career-spanning set with ‘Do What You Want’ from their genre-defining third album ‘Suffer’, which sends the Bristol crowd into an immediate frenzy.
Guitarist and songwriter Gurewitz is missing from the line-up tonight, reducing the group to a five-piece, but the other members appear in good moods. The band’s co-founders who are present, singer Greg Graffin and bassist Jay Bentley, seem particularly good-humoured and spend much of the gig exchanging jokes between themselves and the crowd. Just a short way into the show, Graffin apologises to the Bristol fans for not playing here for a while, before jesting that they were waiting for a good reason, like the release of their new album, to come back.
As this weekend marks the start of the football season, Graffin makes an amusingly topical reference to the recent performances by both England and the USA in the World Cup: “It was good to see the footie season start today, now that we’re both at the same level.” Bentley then gets hit by a trainer thrown from the crowd, but rather than walking offstage in a Gallagher-esque huff, he laughs and responds: “I didn’t say it, he did.”
Elsewhere in the setlist, the band play a number of popular tracks, including early favourites ‘We’re Only Gonna Die’ and ‘F**k Armageddon… This is Hell’, and more recent crowd-pleasers ‘Generator’ and ‘American Jesus’. They then take a short break before returning to play their biggest hit ‘21st Century Digital Boy’ and ‘Sorrow’ from 2002’s ‘The Process of Belief’.
Now that the members of Bad Religion are well into their forties, they may not seem quite as “punk” to the young fans as they once did. However, as a band, they have proved that punk rock needn’t die with youth. The fourteen albums Bad Religion have released to date have confirmed them as one of the outstanding punk bands in the world and, with age, their sound has continued to develop. They may not be quite as youthful and energetic as some of the current pretenders to the punk throne, but tonight’s show has shown that they still have a lot to give and that they can still pack a punk rock punch.
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Tonight’s show in Bristol, which makes up part of Bad Religion’s 30th anniversary tour, comes only a month ahead of their forthcoming studio album ‘The Dissent of Man’. However, the band have chosen to leave their new songs to one side for now and concentrate on the last three decades instead. Walking onto the stage in front of a huge backdrop of their trademark Crossbuster logo, Bad Religion start their career-spanning set with ‘Do What You Want’ from their genre-defining third album ‘Suffer’, which sends the Bristol crowd into an immediate frenzy. 
