Face to Face
Face to Face and Bad Cop/Bad Cop at the Casbah, San Diego
5/6/2017
By Paul Silver
Photos courtesy of Happy Place Media
Getting old really sucks. I mean, I can’t definitely
pin it on getting old, but I’d been suffering with
debilitating back pain for the past month. It caused me
to miss shows I wanted to see. It caused me to have to sleep
on a couch instead of in my bed multiple nights. It caused
my doctor to experiment with different medications of increasing
potency to help me deal with the pain (thus preventing me
from enjoying any alcoholic beverages for a period of time).
As the pain lingered and worsened, I grew concerned that
I might have to miss a show I had been anticipating for
months. Fat Wreck Chords bands Face to Face and Bad Cop/Bad
Cop were doing a short tour around the West Coast together,
and were making a stop at San Diego’s Casbah. The
show sold out nearly as soon as tickets went on sale. I
didn’t want to miss it, and was determined to be there,
even if it meant being high on painkillers and hanging out
in a corner all night. Thankfully, a mere two days before
the show, the pain that had made me walk like a 90 year
old (when I could walk at all) subsided to the point where
I no longer needed meds and I was able to attend, free of
anything in my system that would conspire against me with
the alcohol I might imbibe that night. Being newly on the
mend, however, precluded me from being right up front, camera
in hand, getting jostled pushed, kicked and smacked in the
face by an enthusiastic bunch of punks in order to get photos.
I still ended up hanging out near the back most of the night,
but at least I got to enjoy the show and a few beers.
First up were Bad Cop/Bad Cop, a band you absolutely need
to know about, if you don’t already. I first met the
band at Awesomefest 7, four years ago, and was immediately
impressed. In the intervening years they’ve gone from
a local Southern California band to one of international
renown, having signed to Fat Wreck Chords a few years back,
releasing two records with them since, and touring throughout
North America and Europe. A third record, their second full-length
LP, is coming out next month. The band played several songs
from the new record, “Warriors,” as well as
many from their debut LP “Not Sorry” and the
“Boss Lady” EP. Their three-part harmonies were
out in full force, with guitarists Stacey Dee and Jennie
Cotterill and bassist Linh Le blending together beautifully,
as drummer Myra Gallarza pushed the band ever forward with
a strong beat. Both Stacey and Linh were sporting brand
new instruments, and poor Linh had some strap malfunctions,
with the strap coming undone a few times during songs. She
and their tour manager used duct tape to hold it in place
in true punk rock fashion, while Stacey declared that San
Diego had more people named Kevin per capita than any other
city, an inside joke because a number of our friends in
the scene are named Kevin. “How many Kevins do we
have here tonight?” she asked, but not a single hand
was raised. Our friends had been unable to secure tickets
for the night. As the band continued, two of the new songs
stood out for me. One was written and sung by Le, something
new for the band as most of the songs have been written
and sung by Dee and Cotterill. I don’t know the name
of this particular song, but it’s very much in the
Fat Wreck skate-punk vein and it was pretty fantastic. The
other was what Dee referred to as their “Weezer”
song, the one that will be “radio friendly.”
It’s called “Amputation,” and is about
cutting out the toxic relationships in your life. In contrast
to the topic of the lyrics, the music was a bit slower,
very bouncy, and tons of fun. After forty minutes of great
music, it was time for Bad Cop/Bad Cop to say goodnight,
however, so the switchover for Face to Face could be made.
Now,
this may be surprising to some, confounding to many, but
this night was the first time I’ve seen Face to Face.
Not only that, I had never really spent much time listening
to them. So I had no expectations, no way to know what I
was about to experience. I know, I know. Yes, I have been
living under a rock, what’s your point? Face to Face
has been around for some twenty-six years, and in that time
have put out nearly a dozen full-length LPs and even more
EPs. They’ve been on a number of record labels, even
releasing a few records on controversial label Victory Records
and several on major label A&M. They released some stuff
on Fat back in the day, and now they’re back in the
fold. Given that history, I had some skepticism about whether
I would enjoy the band. Lots of bands that are that “old”
tend to slow down, rest on their laurels, and play “hits”
from back in the day that sound about as relevant today
as black and white television. But Face to Face are just
as relevant as any band in the pop punk scene today, and
a lot tighter. I can’t say I know what songs they
played, but they had a very modern pop punk sound. The crowd
went crazy, and there was even crowd surfing, something
that almost never happens at a show at the Casbah. Front-man
Trever Keith injected a bit of humor into the nearly non-stop
set of breakneck-paced punk songs by promising he would
not say “whale vagina” for the whole night.
Except he said it. Multiple
times. After nearly an hour of some great music, the band
thanked the crowd and walked off stage. This is when the
crowd normally would start shouting for encores. But San
Diego is a weird place. A few people started whooping and
hollering, but for the most part the crowd was subdued,
just standing and waiting for the band to come back. They
did, but not without some more humor. They said they came
back inside, not because the crowd demanded more songs,
but because of the rain from an unusual spring storm that
hit Southern California that night. As long as they were
there, they might as well play some more songs, right? They
immediately launched into a cover of Descendents’
“Bikeage,” driving the crowd into a frenzy.
After a few more encores, Face to Face had played a set
of some sixty-five minutes to the capacity crowd, and the
night was over.
My back is still on the mend, but now so is the gaping
hole in my punk points score, because I’ve now seen
Face to Face and know what all the fuss is about. And now
I’m a fan, too. It was unexpected, but is certainly
not undeserved.
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