CLEARWATER — Southern California punk legends Social Distortion and Bad Religion will perform with special guest the Lovebombs Sunday, April 28, 7 p.m., at The BayCare Sound at Coachman Park, 255 Drew St, Clearwater.
Tickets start at $49.50. Visit www.rutheckerdhall.com.
The two iconic bands will join forces to bring their signature sounds and beloved catalogs to stages across the continent, showcasing their enduring legacy and influence on the punk rock movement.
“Bad Religion and Social Distortion played together in 1980,” Bad Religion singer Greg Graffin noted. “Though we evolved in different directions, we both carried the torch of Southern California punk all along the way. Now we’re so excited to be on the same stage again.”
For a complete list of tour dates and more information, visit www.badreligion.com and www.socialdistortion.com.
For many years, Social Distortion have all but trademarked their sound, a brand of hard rockabilly/punk that’s cut with the melodic, road-tested lyrics of frontman Mike Ness. Their searing guitars and a locomotive rhythm section sound as alive today as they did in ’82, as do Ness’ hard-luck tales of love, loss and lessons learned.
“The most common thing I hear is, ‘Man, your music got me through some hard times,'” Ness said. “And I just say, ‘Me too.'”
“Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes,” produced, for the first time, by Ness himself, is the band’s most recent release. Social Distortion experienced a significant amount of firsts in 2011: “Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes” debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard Top 200 and was the highest debut that the band has yet seen. It was also the No. 1 Independent Album and the No. 2 Modern Rock/Alternative Album week of release. The band also made their late-night television debut when they performed “Machine Gun Blues” on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
Bad Religion has defied the usual trend-shifts and retained its core audience while roping in subsequent generations of anxiously energetic kids. The band has long settled into the current lineup who have arguably enacted to most muscular Bad Religion to ever grace a stage: Greg Graffin (vocals) and Jay Bentley (bass) join Brian Baker (guitarist since ’94), guitarist Mike Dimkich, and drummer Jamie Miller.
Having formed right on the heels of the original explosion, the band led the West Coast arm of hardcore’s birth, adding their melodic riffs, zooming harmonies, and viciously verbose lyrical punch to the basic bash of hardcore.
