MUSIC

Social Distortion packs Marquee for sold-out anniversary

Serene Dominic
Special for the Republic | azcentral.com
Social Distortion performs at the Marquee Theatre Tuesday, July 28, 2015, in Tempe.

How do you celebrate the silver anniversary of your first gold album? Some artists would release a pricey commemorative 25th anniversary edition with lots of bonus cuts but that's not happening with Social Distortion's eponymous major label debut. Neither is lone surviving member Mike Ness re-assembling the bandmates with whom he recorded the album to perform it with him.

Instead Social Distortion are doing the fashionable thing of playing the anniversary album in its entirety. Sure, it's doubtful that Social D have ever done a gig in the intervening 25 years that has excluded "Story of My Life," "Ball and Chain," "Ring of Fire," "So Far Away" or a good 70 percent of this album, but it gives fans of deep cuts like "She's a Knockout" and "Drug Train" the chance to hear songs that have been benched for at least two decades.

RELATED: Social Distortion revisits album

Social D fans certainly welcomed this opportunity to hear that album in its entirety live. And why shouldn't they? "Social Distortion," the album, was one of the best-selling punk rock albums up to that time, at least before "Dookie" came along and grabbed that merit badge.

Back in 1990, a willingness to combine country music and blues with punk hadn't been an idea that had occurred to many folks beyond Jason and the Scorchers and X. Ness acknowledged as much when just before "Ball and Chain" he revealed that he didn't know if punks would be accepting of this experimentation or that anyone would even like the album. "I guess this proves that some risks are worth taking," he concluded.

About the only resistance the album met with at the time of issue was from chain stores who refused to stock the album because it found offense with its cover drawing of a gangster, Marilyn Monroe and some gal boozing it up. Blown up to stage size for last night's backdrop, it's hard to know what they found so offensive. If you compared it to the censored cover of "Appetite for Destruction," released three years prior (which depicted a robot rapist), this art almost seemed quaint, like a children's drawing of mommy and daddy.

Besides that observation, this sold-out show made me cognizant of three things:

1. The number of tattoos you have truly is indicative of how much you love Social Distortion. If I had room to move my arms and make a clear assessment, I could've backed that statement up with on-the-spot collected scientific data.

2. Social Distortion have retained a lot of their old punk following.

3. Old punks take up a lot more room than young punks. Or maybe you don't notice the land-area mass that they occupy because young fans are constantly pogoing, crowd-surfing and getting thrown out of shows for pogoing and crowd-surfing. Old fans stay earthbound and just secure their space permanently like grazing cattle.

The result was a show in which everyone was packed into the Marquee uncomfortably close, worse than any overcrowded commuter train because no one ever seems to get off after a popular song the way they do at an important train stop.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with seasoned punk gentry, you could actually felt every "O-A-O" the crowd sang along with Ness in "Sick Boys" reverberate in your chest, as if we all one echo chamber. This happened a lot in the beginning when the audience was genuinely charged up, all the songs we had collectively memorized were situated and the people standing next to us hadn't sweat so much from the accrued body heat.

The problem with performing an album in sequence and in its entirety is that everyone knows what he or she is getting and if you start out of the gate performing said album, it sometimes can feel like the show peaks too soon. "Drug Train," with its epic guitar solo performed by Jonny "Two Bags" Wickersham, is a perfect album closer and set closer, which made most of what followed it seem like an afterthought. It is for that reason that Ness moved "Ring of Fire" to the position of penultimate song, thus diluting the effect of playing the whole album in sequence. How punk rock is that?

Not as punk rock as Social D strolling onstage while the PA blasted "Gimme Shelter," possibly one of the most exciting openings of any rock song ever and then proceeding to obliterate it with two distorted guitars trashing out "So Far Away." No disrespect to Sir Mick was intended, as Social D performed a great cover of what Ness deemed his favorite Stones' song, "Wild Horses."

Such was the dynamic of the entire-album-in-sequence show that I immediately hoped they would've ditched the rest of their set and launched into "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" and then the rest of "Sticky Fingers." Now that would've been REEEALLLY punk rock!

Just prior to Social D was South Carolina singer-songwriter Nikki Lane, who would probably be considered too country for country these days. Her ringing voice and demeanor occupied a sonic space somewhere between Loretta Lynn and Neko Case and she managed to keep this crowd engaged with strong material and a crack band even after her opening announcement of "You think you can tolerate us for 45 minutes?" elicited some notable groans in the back. Or maybe someone was grabbing for their phone and accidentally reached out and touched somebody else.

Social Distortion's set list

So Far Away

Let It Be Me

Story of My Life

Sick Boys

Ball and Chain

It Coulda Been Me

She's a Knockout

A Place in My Heart

Drug Train

Machine Gun Blues

Wild Horses (Rolling Stones cover)

Alone and Forsaken (Hank Williams cover)

This Time Darling

Gimme the Sweet and Lowdown

Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash cover)

Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash cover)

Don't Drag Me Down