Boston, MA - Great Woods Center
May 21, 1997

Mansfield, Mass. -- Great Woods opened for the season last night with a raucous evening of ska, punk and sod-throwing, headlined by pop-punk band Offspring and Boston ska/rock favorites the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Attendance was 12,584. The throwing began during L7's set, when fans sitting on the Great Woods lawn starting tearing up chunks of lawn and hurling it at each other and into the covered amphitheater. L7, bad girls that they are, seemed tickled by it. "Stop the insanity!" they joked.

Then Dickie Barrett of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones took a more serious stab at halting things, saying people were being hurt by the sod. (Great Woods officials would not comment on whether there were injuries.) "If one more person gets hurt, I'm going home," Barrett said. The sod-throwing stopped.

L7's music is all grinding guitar riffs, pummeling rhythms and hoarsely defiant vocals. The band recently added Rhode Islander Gail Greenwood, formerly of Belly, on bass.

"I rule! I [expletive] rule!" Greenwood proclaimed when she was introduced, and she had a fine time tossing her two-toned hair to the thick bass riffs. Offspring, who played next, was one of the neo-punk bands (along with Rancid and Green Day) who hit it big a few years ago. The band has catchy songs, mixing punk energy with pop hooks and occasional ska rhythms. But they didn't come across very well last night, thanks to a sound mix dominated by a boomy bass, with the guitars and lead singer Dexter Holland's thin vocals almost swallowed up. The band did "Cool to Hate" and "Gone Away" from its new album, "Ixnay on the Hombre," and reached back to their breakthrough success, 1994's "Smash," for "Nitro (Youth Energy)" and their huge hits "Come Out and Play" and "Self-Esteem."

The band had some fun with an "intermission" complete with couch and bubbles, while Noodles, their guitarist, did some entertaining bits of AC/DC, Black Sabbath and Guns 'N Roses. But their set never overcame the abysmal sound.

By Andy Smith Journal - Bulletin Pop Music writer