Kansas City, KS - Memorial Hall
February 22, 1995

OFFSPRING
QUICKSAND
NO USE FOR A NAME
February 22, 1995
Memorial Hall
Kansas City

If I said to anyone that the Offspring played a Lawrence, KS club on March 17, 1994 to an audience around 65 people – that included the bands, crew and bartenders that were there, you’d probably say that I was lying. It happened. Since then, all the sheep that watch the channel of hip brainwashed culture MTV has been told this is what to buy. It really is scary just how much power that iconoclastic pile of refuse has over a weak-minded America. Of well ...

This was a punk show. That means usually that means normal “rock concert” crap shouldn’t happen, but it did. For instance: Limos, cowboy boots, big hair-mini skirt Edna’s (groupies, Jezebel’s, etc.) For over half of this crowd, this was just another place to take their dates to for a night out – which usually consisted of Guitars & Cadillac’s or the Shitkicker Saloon, or a sports bar of some kind. The others were the new breed of “punk” (ballcap-wearin’-stussy-branded-baggy-pants-short-hair-pseudo-jocks-that-found-something-faster-than-grungy-Seattle-bands-that-they-could-smoke-pot-to-typical fuckheads) and their flannel clad girlfriends. Anyway ...

No Use For A Name played first. This band definitely fit the bill. Incredibly fast, melodic, intense music. I’d say they sound like Bad Religion with some Lagwagon thrown in. Pretty nifty. They definitely kicked the shit out of that band who as of now I have labeled “the kings of out of tune feedback” – Quicksand.

Quicksand sounded like a guitar being tuned with a pair of pliers on every string doing both directions of the scale at once. When they played music, they actually weren’t that bad, but that damned feedback probably left permanent damage. The crowd loved them, for some reason, go figure. I guess I don’t listen to 105.9 FM The Lazer in Lawrence enough to know that they were cool. My (hearing) loss.

Probably the most entertaining thing of the night was when they played The Vandals between sets. I think it was Peace Thru Vandalism – fuckin’ incredible. (Better than Quicksand.)

The lights went down and with photo pass in hand, I made my way to the security box and awaited my favorite band (I can say that – they’ve been that for 4 _ years, fucker). They came out and opened to Bad Habit, which really set things ablaze. Right when the fast part kicks in, they hit what must have been 30 strobes from both sides of the stage – and I was dead center. It’s a totally different feeling when you are in-between those fuckers. As the song progressed, Dexter was bouncing around so much that he almost stepped on my hand. He later jumped out into the crowd, which freaked them out. I was having such a good time – I wasn’t going to let the crowd ruin it for me. After emptying almost two rolls of film in 3 songs (fuck you security), I watched the rest of the show from the floor. They played a lot from Ignition, and since I personally hadn’t listened to Smash since October, it was refreshing to hear the great songs that aren’t on the radio, like What Happened To You?, So Alone, and Smash – in which a friend and I joined in singing “all of you are trendy assholes” to the crowd. Dexter even started a stage diving contest, and had security help people that wanted to dive to the stage. That was pretty cool.

After the show, I went backstage and talked to the band (after having a little mind fun with a bimbo who asked me “are you the bus driver?” in which I replied, “Why, yes I am.”). Ron the drummer put in the first Pennywise album. Dexter told me he saw a big guy down front singing all the words to all the old songs and thought to himself, “that ain’t right,’ and then later recognized him as me. I thought that was pretty cool that he remembered me. So did Noodles. Noodles how has a buzz cut – all of his hair, gone. It’s all growing in gray, but he didn’t care. Ron, the drummer, seems to be competing with Billie Joe in the hair color dept. (VERY blue), and Greg K still doesn’t talk hardly at all - plus the very same bimbo that I fucked with was on his lap. What a rock star. He could have cared less, that’s what was so funny.

Great show, great bands (at least 2 of ‘em). The only thing that was upsetting (other than the crowd) was they didn’t play anything off the 1st album. Oh, well.

By Shawn Frevele, from Life From Beyond - 1995