Los Angeles, CA - Universal Amphitheatre
April 3, 1999



The Offspring

Call it punk rock irony, but the Offspring write the kind of gritty hard-hitting punk anthems that appeal to the very crowd whose misguided ways inspired the songs in the first place.

But if this timeworn twist of fate bothers the Offspring, they certainly didn't show it playing to a packed house on the first of two sold-out nights at Los Angeles' plush Universal Amphitheater. The show was hyper-charged, bass-heavy and blistering. And the audience - packed to the rafters with squealing girls, bros and dudes who moshed in the aisles, screamed, threw things and batted around inflated condoms - embraced it without reservation.

The thundering roar started before the entire band even took the stage and increased as drummer Ron Welty began slamming the heavily miked drums. Singer Dexter Holland finally ran onstage, acknowledged the teeming masses with a simple wave, and tore into "Americana," the grinding title track from the Orange County quartet's most recent release, which reveals Holland's bleak view of a Jerry Springer-ized society "where culture's defined by the ones least refined." Pretty elitist ramblings, but no matter, because it gave the audience a chance to catch their breath before once more screaming along to the chorus of "Well f--k you!" That, unlike the harder to swallow lyrics, they heard.

From there, the Offspring blazed through other equally kinetic songs from Americana, their major label debut Ixnay on the Hombre, and their eleven million-copy selling indie album Smash, leaving no hit song unplayed.

On-stage banter was of the numbing arena rock sort: "Hey, how you guys doing?"... "Alright Los Angeles, I wanna hear you guys yell!"... "There's a lot of people here tonight!" Each throwaway line was met with deafening approval.

Perhaps it's as simple as the more people you're trying to reach, the more uncomplicated you have to make the message. And perhaps that explains the strange interlude after the Offspring played a muscular rendition of "Bad Habit."

"Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome the Backstreet Boys," said an announcer, and five mannequins dressed as the Backstreet Boys promptly appeared. To the booing crowd, Holland retored, "You wanna see how much I love the Backstreet Boys?" and then methodically decimated each "Backstreet Boy" with a big orange baseball bat. The crowd loved it. LOVED IT! But what the hell was that about?

Americana finds the Offspring, in witty and astute form, taking dead aim on some of society's least attractive (yet strangely compelling) ills, from white guys trying to be "down," to the failure of prisons to rehabilitate, to therapy-junkies and on and on. So why then are the Offspring taking such a cheap and obvious pot-shot at such an easy target? To further confuse, the Offspring then rushed headlong into "Cool to Hate," a song that cleverly sheds light on the way it's easier "to tear things down than build them up/it's easier that way." If irony was intended, it was lost on an audience who just thought it was "rad" to see Holland take a baseball bat to the Backstreet Boys.

Aside from that, the visceral set did have some nice cartoonish surprises, including the guy dressed in a convict's stripes who delivered some mid-song dialogue with Holland during "Walla Walla," and Guy Cohen (who plays the spindly white guy lampooned in the video for the hit single "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" ) busting those familiar break dance moves. His presence, coupled with the fact that the Offspring themselves looked just like they do in their videos, gave the show less of the real immediacy of a concert and more of the glossy, over-styled and under-substanced sheen of an MTV Buzz Bin clip. But judging from the screaming of the more than 6,000 fans in the house, that's what the kids came to see.

By Alison M. Rosen, from Rolling Stone - April 14, 1999