San Francisco, CA - Fillmore Auditorium
December 12, 1994



Offspring Rock The Fillmore

Two indelible images remain from the Offspring's devastating opening night performance at San Francisco's legendary Fillmore Auditorium. The first, is of a sweet girl, perhaps 15 years old, long straight brown hair, blue jeans, short white t-shirt, mid-riff exposed climbing out of the mosh pit onto the stage, standing up, pausing to gaze out into the sea of writhing bodies, and then diving in.

The second is of singer Dexter Holland, just prior to the group's final encore of the night, screaming into his microphone, "Ah fuck, fuck, fuck!"

The Offspring are about community and rebellion, and as they blitzed through a one hour set of high octane rock & roll, duel guitars roaring, they managed to both unite with their young (I'd say 16 or so year old) fans, while raising the finger defiantly to the world at large.

The group's second album, the aptly titled Smash, has sold in excess of three million copies in the U. S., and with it lodged solidly in the Top 10, is continuing to sell at a rate of over 160,000 copies a week. Against this backdrop, the group, clearly supercharged by their recent change of fortunes, were, on this night, playing to this adoring crowd, the greatest rock-and-roll band in the world.

Tomorrow they may be just another pretender to the crown, but at the Fillmore, from the opening chords of "Bad Habit," an indictment of dudes with guns ("I guess I got a bad habit of blowin' away," goes the chorus) through the encore, "Session," detailing sexual obsession, the Offspring rocked like a motherfucker.

The only safe spot to view the show from was the upstairs balcony, where one could literally view the action from above the mosh pit, observing the kids repeat the stage-diving ritual over and over as the band at times seemed to simply serve as the soundtrack to this rite of youth.

I came to the show with this preconception: that the Offspring were a tired rehash of early '80s L. A. post-punk bands like Fear and the Circle Jerks. This came from reading over and over about how Green Day and the Offspring epitomized the popularization of punk rock.

At the Fillmore, the Offspring, from the moment they charged onto the stage, blew such rock crit bullshit to bits. Confounding the punk image, Holland arrived wearing a purple double-breasted suit over the kind of Hawaiian print shirt one would expect Chris Isaak to sport while fiddling with his tikis. The suit and his pretty boy looks brought to mind INXS' Michael Hutchence, back when that group was still churning out cool shit like "The One Thing."

So much for punk stereotypes. Guitarist Noodles has hair so long and looks so weird he would have fit right in Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention. Dreadlocked drummer Ron Welty and bassist Greg K look more like Seattle grunge masters than L. A. punkers.

Then there was the music. The group's performance of "Dirty Magic," apparently about a girl who finds cocaine more attractive than male companionship, took what is a fine track off the group's debut album, ignition and turned it into one of the centerpieces of the set, with it's infectious guitar hooks, Bo Diddleyesque rhythms and ecstatic groove.

The music was passionate and intense, but the night was as much about the community that the Offspring have fostered, as it was about them. Fans were allowed to mount the stage, stand next to the band members before taking the plunge back into the horde. At times five and six members of the audience were running across the stage. The group's security men basically had a hands-off attitude, simply watching, occasionally helping a fan make their way back into the pit.

This ritual stage diving was as much a part of the night as the rockin' band, and as the set developed, it truly felt that audience and band were one, creating a safe haven - at least for the hour the Offspring were on stage - far, far from the nightmarish landscape that American youth view each day.

Yes, they played the hits - "Come Out and Play" and "Self Esteem." Yes they rocked mightily through much of both albums. And yes, Holland himself dived into the pit, proving to any doubters that, yes, he may now be a rich rock star, but he hasn't forgotten his roots.

This band, at least for now, is about community. They're not into ripping off their fans, which was clear from the low $10 ticket admission, $15 t-shirt and $10 CD prices. They understand that if they treat their fans right, they might just stick with them for life.

By Michael Goldberg - Addicted to Noise