Against Me! seems to have a genuine affection for Grand Rapids, MI. The feeling is clearly mutual, and the band comes to town every year or two. Every time, Laura Jane Grace mentions playing at Skeletones. It’s the now defunct all ages venue where AM! played before they were a household name (in punk circles at least). Wednesday September 14th was almost a return to those Skeletones days as Against Me! played in the intimate Stache downtown. It also happened to be the opening night of a short headlining tour before they hook up with Bad Religion for a bunch of dates.

It’s been interesting watching the Against Me! audience ebb and flow and change demographically over the last several years. In the early days, it was mostly punk kids. Later, the audience grew larger and more mainstream as the band was signed to a major label and was getting a bit of radio airplay. The audience swelled again when the artist formerly known as Tom Gabel came out as transgender. After the Rolling Stone article and widespread media attention, they started drawing an increasing number of supporters, wellwishers and maybe just the curious. It seemed as if a lot of the band’s new supporters came for the ideology and stayed for the music. It’s probably safe to assume that a fair amount of them were not punk fans per say. Well, most of them must have liked what they heard, because that crowd has stuck around. The majority of the punk kids have stayed too. The rock radio fans and music festival bros are long gone.

On this night, that audience was likely watching Metallica wannabes Avenged Sevenfold at the nearby arena. Better there than here, but it did make parking hard to come by. After a long walk, we showed up late and completely missed the first opener. The odd shaped room was already completely packed when we got there, so lots of other people must have seen Frameworks. We caught Potty Mouth’s full set and really enjoyed it. The all girl band played a style rooted in 90’s alternative and grunge. Think Smashing Pumpkins, The Breeders or maybe a slightly mellower version of Bikini Kill or L7. The Massachusetts band probably got their name from the Bratmobile LP, and they play music in that tradition. For the record, I don’t remember hearing them curse even once.

Against Me! opened their 65 minute set with “FUCKMYLIFE666” and proceeded to give the crowd a heavy dose of songs from Transgender Dysphoria Blues as well as the new album Shape Shift With Me. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of the songs came from those two LP’s. The new record had been streaming recently, but I hadn’t had much of a chance to check it out. Most of the new songs were unfamiliar to me. (When TDB came out two years ago, I had already heard many of the songs live more than once.) On the plus side, I was able to pick up a copy of Shape Shift With Me at the show, two days before its official release date.

There were a few older nuggets sprinkled in. LJG and company played at least a song or two from each album. “Pints of Guinness Make You Strong” from Reinventing Axl Rose and “Cliche Guevarra” and “Sink, Florida, Sink” from As the Eternal Cowboy were met with roars of approval. “I Was a Teenage Anarchist” might have gotten the best reception of the night. “White Crosses” and “New Wave” were pretty popular too. I especially enjoyed “Miami” and “Joy” from Searching for a Former Clarity. The setlist was definitely skewed toward the more recent personal stuff. I must confess that I missed hearing some of my old political favorites like “From Her Lips to God’s Ears”, “White People for Peace” and “Baby, I’m an Anarchist!”. I guess it’s probably not the band’s fault that I’m stuck in the past.

It was an entertaining show, despite the fact that Against Me! didn’t play all of MY favorite songs. Atom’s aggressive drumming made the whole thing go. Inge bounced along plucking his Rickenbacker and looking like a perfect doppelganger for a young Dee Dee Ramone. James was rock solid as usual, the yin to Laura’s yang. Laura was the ringmaster, the heart and soul of the band. She spent most of the night with a smile on her face.I can clearly remember seein Against Me! for the first time (many years ago with with Tom). I remember thinking that it looked like he was having more fun than anyone else in the room. There have been other shows since then that didn’t feel that way. On this night, it once again felt like a joyful performance.