I guess I forgot to write about the Social Distortion show. It was good. It was loud. The guys are getting’ old though. There’s just something weird about a 40-year-old guy with tattoos wearing black eyeliner.

They played some songs I recognized and some I didn’t. Of course they played Mommy’s Little Monster, The Creeps, and closed with Story Of My Life. But thrown in there were a couple surprises. Near the beginning of the show, they eased into a song with a very familiar melody. I swore I hear it just the other day, but Social Distortion’s only radio song is Story Of My Life, so something was up. After a few more bars, I realized I was listening to a Rolling Stones cover. It was Under My Thumb. I thought they did a good job giving it their own special Social D touch.

The other major crowd-pleaser was the first song in the encore: Ring of Fire. Man that place lit up. Rocking out a Johnny Cash song is a guaranteed way to get an audience going. It really, really suited them, more so than Under My Thumb. When a band bent on maintaining its teen angst with brooding lyrics, sneering vocals, and a twinge of blues gets its hands on a song like Ring Of Fire, success is the only result. I know it’s blasphemous to say so, but they could have pulled it off as one of their own songs.