Some Kind of Blood Drive
Photos and story by Brian Brannon
Zeke probably played the fastest of anybody and they held it together.
I had never seen them before and the music I had heard sounded a little
noisy, but when I saw them live I realized their power and was straight
impressed with the sound they were putting down. Ultra tight and
blazing, Zeke shifted the party into high gear with an infectious grinding of
the gears.
The Misfits took over after sunset and stunk up the place. The low point of their sloppy and predictable set was when the singer tried to pick a fight with a little girl in the audience, calling her foul names over the PA.
X was the only band that got the benefit of playing in the dark and
that surely helped their set immeasurably, but like The Damned, as long as
they stick to their roots it's all good to me. Maybe next year the show
should start a little later. Other than that, if they keep bands of
that caliber playing, you can bet someone from SkateRock, if not the whole
crew, will be there again next year.
The promoters were considerate enough to donate some proceeds to the American Red Cross and to the West Memphis 3 (wrongly imprisoned youths, see www.wm3.org)
Web Links:
The lineup for the first annual Halloween fest Blood Drive was enough
to bring people out in the light who usually on get seen at night. Any
show that throws together punk rock heroes like The Damned, X,
Supersuckers, and Zeke, is a show worth checking out. SkateRock.com was there as a
runner-up in the Blood Drive 2000 Webmaster Contest, with
ConcreteDisciples.com taking the cake for their excellent photos, articles and video
clips of sweet vertical riding. Held on Saturday, October 28, 2000, at
Hidden Valley in Irvine, CA, the event also drew a tight selection of
classic cars and a smooth riding Hearsts. All the OC punkers came out
dressed in black and had a bad old time.
The Supersuckers are always a good show, they've got their act down to
a science. When Eddie Spaghetti tells everyone they're the greatest
rock 'n' roll band in the world, you don't hear too many people
disagreeing with him. Despite the brightness of daylight, the Suckers threw down
when their time came.
Then there was The Damned and you can fuck-off if you think I'm going
to give them a bad review. As long as they don't try and play a set of
that peppy, poppy Heloise ass crap they tried to pull sometime in the
late-eighties they can do no wrong. They set the stage with the haunting
13th Floor Vendetta from the Black Album and went on from there with a
set which included Curtain Call, Looking At You, Plan 9 and of course
Neat Neat Neat. Vanian was wearing a red jacket and devils horns while
on bass they had Patricia from Legal Weapon in some kind of nun's
outfit. The Captain was sporting a Frankenstein forehead and the new drummer
was decent, but there is only one Rat Scabies. Some people said they
played too long, but I hope that their 23 years of anarchy, chaos and
destruction is only the beginning.
The mighty X played next with their full original line-up, which is
always a stoker. Billy Zoom, Exene, John Doe and DJ Bonebreak are a potent
combination not to be taken lightly. They concentrated on their early
songs off Los Angeles and thankfully avoided many of the pitfalls of
their later crap. As usual Billy Zoom had the perfect guitar sound and his
coiffure was looking impeccable as well. The chords he was playing on
the song Unheard Music combined with Exene and John's harmonies were
eerily beautiful coming out fully dialed on a huge PA like that.
In the crowd was Orange County's 10th scariest resident Duane Peters and also Billy Runaway formerly of Thrasher Mag and the Palmdale "Duel in the Desert" Ramp.
