The Warfield, San Francisco
February 4, 2011
Yes, Metal friends, I like Social D... Yes, most of their songs are pretty derivative and the lyrics earnestly cheesy, but I like them because it's all about the delivery. Mike Ness is like an Orange County version of Lemmy... Now, DON'T think that I'm saying Ness is as godlike as Lemmy... I'm just saying that life experiences can make up for many things with a band; if Ness didn't have some credibility behind his songs it would be completely different. Also, for the past 7 years it's been a tradition of sorts that I see Social D with my Music Geek brother The Sheriff... so here we were again.
Tonight was one of those surgically precise shows that make me appreciate my home; it only took me 17 minutes to go from Casa de Umlaut to being parked near The Warfield. Tonight was also the 2nd completely sold out show, which is impressive when you think about how many Rock bands can sell out The Warfield for two nights these days (not very many). Inside it was a very lively Friday night crowd... and our seats gave us the perfect vantage point to watch douchbags beat the crap out of each other.
I can't remember the last time I've seen girls crowd surfing while wearing spike heels. Not to be an Old Fart, but they could poke someone's eye out! Anyway, the set started off really strong with 'Road Zombie' (the opening instrumental off the new album... I think..) that went into 'So Far Away'... and 'Mommy's Little Monster' was particularly good tonight... and for the first 5 or 6 songs I thought that tonight had the makings of one of the best Social D shows that I've seen. The lively Friday night crowd on the floor was going nuts with plenty of entertaining bonehead crowd action and the band were lively and playing great.However, then Social D went from their full-on Lock 'N Loll mode and downshifted to their slower Old Country-tinged mode... and the transition was bumpy for me because they stayed in that gear for a bit too long. A slowed down version of 'Cold Feelings' was alright but I would have preferred the jacked up Rock version much more. They picked the momentum up a bit with a good version of 'Making Believe' and closed the main set with the standard 'Ring Of Fire'. Stomp, stomp... Clap, clap... said the crowd.
For the encores, Social D lost me when when they brought out a pair of young female back up singers for 2 new songs. In Umlaut's World back up singers are completely unnecessary in a Rock band; added fluff to compensate for a lack of something else in the band. However, the best part of this segment was seeing how uncomfortable the singers looked onstage as the lively Friday night crowd punched and shoved each other in front of them... and once their part was over they seemed to leave the stage a little too quickly ("Get us out of here!"). Then the show closed with the standard 'Story Of My Life'... and I made a quick exit... and then I interrupted a gentleman smoking crack in the parking garage. Sorry, dude..
My winner for bonehead guy down on the floor was the disheveled and bruised dude who had one sleeve of his longsleeve button down shirt ripped completely off; he looked like he'd been in a parking lot brawl. Yeah, Social D attracts alot of douchbags to their shows... Do people still wear Von Dutch?? I guess so...
Number of Motörhead shirts = 2. I was going to do a merch audit but Social D are one of those bands who offer an insane amount of items so I didn't even bother... but bootleg Social D shirts were selling outside for only $5! On the way back to the car, some pimply-faced teenagers called me a fag. All in all it was a decent Friday night and a good hang time with The Sheriff... but now it's the weekend! Next..
