Ottawa, ONT - Congress Centre
July 22, 1997



Offspring Delivers Even If Crowd Is Sparse

Well, it had to happen sometime in this summer of musical plenty in the Nation's Capital, but last night's show by California's The Offspring provided what could be the first concrete hint the area's consumers may finally be suffering a bit of billfold fatigue after weeks worth of top-quality (and top-dollar) musical entertainment.

Fewer than 1,500 were spread out inside the echoing an empty-looking Congress Centre to see a solid show from the leading exponents of so-called Orange County punk.

To be fair to the Californians, The Offspring treated the evening as if they had a full house, crashing through the songs off their multi-million-copy selling albums Smash and Ixnay on the Hombre.

In true punk fashion, the band set security officers' teeth on edge right off the bat, with a pre-recorded intro (probably done by ex-Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra, a friend of The Offspring) urging fans to "fluff stuff up" (or words to that effect) and calling for stage-diving from the band and stage visits from the fans.

Perhaps fortunately, the Ottawa fans lived up to their reputation and only a couple of moshers took advantage of the invitation to get up close and personal with the band.

This, on the other hand, did not deter the band - and, in particular the front line of singer Dexter Holland, guitarist Noodles and bass player Greg K - from egging moshers to near-frenzy status.

(The band members were ably helped by what has to be the hardest working roadie in showbiz. The as-far-as-we-could-tell unidentified assistant was everything from backup singer to percussionist to freelance stagediver, saving the talent from most of the serious bruising).

With several million albums in circulation, The Offspring's catalogue is pretty well-known and the crowd was quick to react to songs such as Cool to Hate and Mota. Mota, in particular, kick-started several high-intensity crowd surfing episodes as the audience was egged on by some world-class lighting from the band.

Which does bring us to the question that has been bugging the band since its albums started taking off a couple of years ago.

In the holier-than-thou world of punk, there's a school of thought that your punk cred decreases in direct proportion to your record sales and, in the case of The Offspring, there's a certain crowd that's busy accusing the band of being poseurs or whatever just because more than a couple of dozen people have brought its records.

Judging by last night's performance, the record sales have allowed the band to spring for some neat toys, such as a quality PA and state-of-the-art lights (oh yes, and a Lawrence Welk-ish bubble machine, which came on during the band's "intermission").

But toys don't make the band and last night's performance showed The Offspring rocks as solidly as anyone.

Too bad more people weren't there to watch.

Special mention should be made of both warmup bands.

Montreal's The Doughboys, who seem to have retired more times than the Ramones, smoked on their too-brief set before The Offspring.

And Ottawa's own Punchbuggy, unveiling their new(-ish) five-man lineup for the first time in a major setting, showed that rumors of their passing were happily way too premature.

From Ottawa Citizen - July 23, 1997