Against Me! @ 9:30 Club
Against Me! – the most accessible folk-punk band in the world – took the stage around 7:30 yesterday and were all business, plowing through twenty or so samplings of their fierce, Guinness-fueled brand of melodic rock in around an hour and a half. Those who managed to sneak out of work early to catch a good spot in the not-quite sold out crowd left drained and ready for the caloric replenishment that only the venerable Ben’s Chili Bowl can provide – appropriately enough for a band who embodies the meat-and-potatoes punk rock ethos of beer, political awareness, and sing-with-me refrains.
It was apparent that being in the nation’s capital roused the easily-awoken political ire of the band, and they allowed their music to scream out in the chorus of songs like “White People for Peace.” Ferocious lyrics like “The President's giving a speech in Georgetown to remember the voice of a slain civil rights leader/ Do you understand what the martyr stood for/Oh Condoleezza, do you get the fucking joke?” in “From Her Lips to God’s Ears (The Energizer)” were sung with extra gusto inside the heart of the political America.
Even if you can’t stand the soapbox mentality, the band certainly didn’t fail to deliver on stamina, which, regardless of your preferred rocking out methodology, is always of paramount significance. The only drops in the set was when frontman Tom Gabel switched guitars about thirty minutes in, and then again, when he moved to an acoustic six-string for the last few tunes of the night. A smattering of older material from the band’s debut LP, Reinventing Axl Rose - including a ‘you must sing along, lest you drown in the voices’ version of “Walking is Still Honest” – placated those who think fondly of the No Idea Records days. But live performances of tracks from the band’s current major-label release, New Wave, prove how much the band has grown sonically while still maintaining the honesty and directness that forged their significant following.