After hearing that Agnostic Front was doing a “theme” set for their thirtieth anniversary of the “Live At CB’s” set, I figured I should check it out. Now, obviously, I am not exactly the biggest fan of their newer work. Actually, I don’t like any AF records post Victim In Pain. Nevertheless, the live record is pretty ill and in a live setting songs like Toxic Shock and Strength sound great. I can definitely get into that.
I made the trek up to Asbury Park after a quiet day of errands and just hanging out. I caught the last few songs of The Last Stand (ex Shutdown, Inhuman), who remind me a lot of newer Madball records. Not really my thing, but the crowd seemed to be into it.
It blows my mind that Ensign have been around for what is almost going on 20 years. While their lineup seems to rotate a bit every so often, Nate and Tim have stuck it out for a lot of those years. I didn’t recognize a lot of their songs, but the crowd was into them and they busted out a nice cover of Show You No Mercy to end their set.
Finally, I made my way up front for Agnostic Front. I was pleasantly surprised to see Pokey from Leeway is playing drums for them right now. As promised, AF blew right into Victim In Pain and, like Supertouch last month, some sloppiness had me worried, but they plowed into Public Assistance, sounding like a well oiled machine. I have to say, the crowd went OFF for AF. Tons of hard dancing (I’m not a super duper mosher, but I really even got into it, for me at least, for a few songs), great diving and huge sing alongs. I spent most of the set up front and center right near Roger.
I was pretty bummed they ended their set with some new songs (and Power, which I took a skinhead elbow to the face during..yeah, I just love explaining pit injuries at work) and finally ended with New Jack.
Roger mentioned they may do more “theme” sets in the future, which could be cool. Imagine if Madball did a Ball of Destruction only set? Or Set It Off!?! Remember how amazing Madball was back then? Holy shit. They were the best live band of the nineties by far.
