Punk lore

Zero Boys @ The Boston Arms 02/08/12 Three bands in total opened for this amazing US punk band, which has been riding a thunderous Vicious Circle for decades. Noise Complaint were a punk heart-attack, a dynamite that you never knew when it will explode. But the veterans of the night showed that, set against their much younger brothers, they still lead the punk game.

Noise Complaint

With looks, admittedly, dangerously close to those rocking dads that air-guitar in family reunions, Zero Boys all but adhere to the rules. Their loud yellow debut Vicious Circle (1982) was a wicked punk masterpiece, that made the American Midwest a force to be reckoned with; and it was played in full force exactly three decades later.
The crowd, on the contrary, looked particularly young (though a lot of us raised our hands when Mayhem asked who was already born in 1979) and we respectfully pogoed and jumped and crowd-surfed to the classics: Amphetamine Addiction, New Generation, Dirty Alleys/Dirty Minds, Civilisations Dying (and they even mentioned The Hives' cover).
The more I think about it... Man, what a record!
And they snack in a couple of top notch covers there too, with first and foremost Magazine's Back to Nature.
That night I entered an empty Boston Arms exhausted and in doubt, only for those Boys to revive me within the first couple of songs. Ace!
Agnostic Front @ The Underworld 08/08/12 First, an enthusiastic thumbs up to the support bands, New Jersey's The Mongoloids and Melbourne's Deez Nuts (sadly I missed California's Take Offense - and they did sound promising). Powerful stuff...
As for the hardcore New York heroes du jour (and they are always du jour), they carry a weight that is hard for any punk fan to ignore.
Guitarist/founder Vinnie Stigma kept flashing the capital STIGMA logo on his mighty instrument, sealing periodically the band's (and his own) sovereignty.
But what I really went crazy over were Roger Miret's vocals. Less apparent (to me, at least) on recordings, his voice combusted and choked with each word giving the illusion that it caved in under the anger and pain of his words.

Agnostic Front

The band's pit hit Gotta Go (from 1998's Something's Gotta Give) naturally dominated the filthy dancefloor. But I have to point out that the band also released, just a year ago, a pretty decent tenth record My Life My Way (Nuclear Blast Records), and I thoroughly enjoyed thrashing myself into the pit for the title song, or the Spanish A Mi Manera.
Basically, Agnostic Front preach one thing, no matter the language: Just do it your way.



Review and photography of Noise Complaint and Zero Boys live by Danai Molocha