Yo, DJ.....HIT ME!!

[Johann]

FLAG at NXNE


I had the incredible honor of seeing heroes of mine play immortal hardcore music at the Opera House in Toronto for NXNE.
FLAG, Chuck Dukowski's touring version of Black Flag (minus co-founder Greg Ginn) played for 1 hour and destroyed all comers.
Stephen Egerton and Bill Stevenson from the Descendents (and Bill was Black Flag's drummer for a while) joined Dez Cadena and Chuck and original frontman Keith Morris to deliver an Epic setlist of classic Flag tunes. I was in heaven, it was just sheer nirvana.

The crowd was a mixed bag, with youngsters and old "vets" who saw these guys in their prime. One 50+ guy in particular made himself look like a total jackass by telling Keith to "stop talking" the first time he spoke to the crowd. I'm surprised Keith didn't kick him in the face.
The guy was a drunk, greasy old punk. I hope he wasn't from Toronto. He made us look bad.
Keith was talking about Hermosa Beach, and how there isn't much cool to do there except surf and look at girls in bikinis when that idiot shouted "stop talking!" Keith looked at him and said "What?" The guy shouted again: "stop talking!"
Keith just said "OK, I'll just take my mic and go. I'll listen to you..." Fuck what an idiot he was.
The "fans" who stage-dived were morons. I couldn't believe they got up onstage (repeatedly) and stage-dived, bumping into Stephen as he played, no compass, drunk on their asses- one of them, he looked like a 16-year old muslim with a hand-made Black Flag tee and red headband, got up multiple times and bumped into Chuck like a total moron- at one point Keith singled him out- "HEY YOU! with the red headband! You don't have to get up here and manhandle Chuck!" What does the kid do? He climbs up onstage and hugs Chuck! Chuck just shrugged at Keith. Amazing. Chuck did some bass noodling and Keith tells him to stop: "You can do your bass solo later..."

Bill was on a riser, behind his impressive Yamaha drumkit. He was like the Rock of Gibraltar. Precision and Perfection on drums. The Ultimate Anchor Man.
Hearing those songs Live was almost too much for me. It was like I'd died and gone to heaven. No joke.
They played all the "hits", if you can call them "hits":
Revenge, Padded Cell (sung by Dez), My War, Jealous Again, Clocked In, Fix Me, Wasted, Gimme Gimme Gimme, Rise Above, Police Story (also sung by Dez, he dedicated it to "the guy at the border", American Waste, No More, Thirsty & Miserable, No Values, Six Pack, Louie Louie and for the encore they did two:
DAMAGED I- Incredible to hear that one and even more incredible to hear I LOVE YOU from the My War Lp- I was very surprised that they chose that one. Keith said before they started the encore that they intended to play those 2 songs as the crowd were filing out of the venue, but it was clear that no one was gonna leave until FLAG were off the stage for good.

I took photos (they'll be up on Facebook sometime soon) and I got my Rise Above CD sleeve signed by Chuck- he wrote "MY LIFE IS THEIR DISEASE. AIN'T NO PHASE" (Henry Rollins and THE DUKE have signed my CD sleeve!!!) and I also got a photo and chatted with Dez outside before their van took off for Montebello Quebec. He's a big NY Giants fan and loves baseball.
They played with Marilyn Manson and Alice Cooper at Montebello and Dez told me to listen to ALice's radio show- "He plays some great stuff on his show!"

If Dez Cadena tells me to listen to Alice Cooper's radio show, I will abide by that.