D.I., the legendary Orange County punks, and The Dickies, L.A. punk pioneers, presented their anthems at the House of Blues of the Sunset Strip. The opening band was Juicehead and the closing one was The Misfits. As a matter of fact, it was the second straight show at the HOB that we went for the opening acts rather than the headliner.
The doors opened almost at 8:00 pm as hundreds of metalheads, rockers and punks with the obligatory Misfits shirts, entered the venue. Juicehead threw a set of 90s punk tunes that even included the Operation Ivy standard, "Knowledge".
Half an hour later, Orange County's finest, Casey Roger and company jumped on stage with their blend of skate punk rock. They opened with "Johnny's got a problem" and continued with classics such as "Imminent War", "Hang Ten in East Berlin" and "Guns". A couple of covers like "Amoeba" (Adolescents) and "Falling Out" (Rikk Agnew) followed in their repertoire. They ended with their best known tune, "Richard hung himself". In general, it was an intense set with lots of energy that left the crowd asking for more.
Our "headliners" came next to ripped the stage apart. The Dickies sounded like it was 1977. Very fun and energetic as their appearances in the old Flipside Magazine videos. Frontman Leonard Graves Phillips and guitarist Stan Lee, the only original members, began with "Rosemary" and played songs from all their early albums such as "Give it Back" "You drive me ape", "I'm ok you're ok", "If Stuart could talk" and the Sabbath cover "Paranoid". "Gigantor" was their last song. The best part was Leonard using different props like gorilla masks, snorkel masks, inflatable women or penis puppets.
We left before The Misfits because I have seen them twice in the past and it was late for a weekday. As we walk to our car, some punks broke into a fight in the street, apparently for something that occurred at the pit. Anyhow, it was a great punk rock show with two of the most legendary punk bands of Southern California.
8/10 stars.
