Social Distortion rocks outdoor Stage AE
-
A crowd of about 4,000 attended the Social Distortion concert Wednesday, the first at Stage AE's outdoor venue on the North Shore. -
Old school: Matt Gourley of Duquesne at Social Distortion concert at Stage AE. -
Fans at the Social Distortion concert at Stage AE's outdoor venue.
Share with others:
Wednesday night the North Shore was a melting pot for punks and Pirates.
In the end, the punks turned out to be the winners.
It was the punk rock opening night for the outdoor version of Stage AE, a venue that allows fans to go hard in the concrete pit or hang back on the surprisingly lush lawn (who says the Rooneys can't grow grass?)
The evening's headliner, Social Distortion, has had a hard time actually getting into Pittsburgh, in part because there hasn't been a venue the right size since it grew beyond Graffiti/Metropol scale. Over the past decade, the vintage Orange County, Calif., punk band found itself in a roller rink, an ice rink and a historic old theater in Greensburg.
It was fitting then that Social D would get the honor of christening the outdoor amphitheater. The show originally was booked for the 2,500-capacity club inside, but popular demand moved it into the great outdoors on an unseasonably warm May night.
The first band to actually play on the big outdoor stage, for future trivia purposes, was the British band Sharks, which we might hesitate to call punk. Although it states its influences as the Clash and Buzzcocks, it was hard to detect much of that late '70s fury. The Social D crowd, one pretty well-versed in the punk ethic, just kind just stood there looking at them, wondering where the grit was to get the toothless Sharks on this bill.
More equipped for the hard-drinking, rockabilly-edged crowd was Chuck Ragan, who has about 20 years of this under his belt, having made his name with the Florida band Hot Water Music. Flanked by a fiddler and upright bass player, he delivered his Celtic-inflected folk/punk songs in a raw, gravelly voice and while he may not be Shane McGowan in the songwriting department, there was an authenticity to his set.
Iconic Social Distortion frontman Mike Ness made his entrance in black trench coat and fedora, then stripped off the coat to reveal his cool Mickey Spillane style of white shirt and suspenders. The band road-tested the ample sound system with the new instrumental "Road Zombie" before kicking into one of the "greatest hits," "So Far Away."
First Published May 11, 2011 11:28 pm
