Last night three of the greats of nineties punk played the Roseland in Portland Oregon where they say it's still the nineties anyway.


The opener was Runaway Kids and they were solid and did a cover of Prisoner of Society by the Living End. 

Unwritten Law started the main event and they opened with Teenage Suicide. They followed that with California Sky, some interesting new songs and their signature Seeing Red. Unwritten Law's anthemic songs are even better live.

Next was the great Strung Out who described themselves as "warming up" for Pennywise though Strung Out is just as good. Their complex guitar and drum work is hard to beat. They started out with "Too Close to See" and stuck mostly to favorites like "Bring Out Your Dead" and closed out with "Soulmate" by No Use For A Name.

Then came Pennywise and it was about time. They played About Time in it's entirety going with the trend of band's playing their old masterpiece live. About Time is indeed a masterpiece and the passion and energy of "Waste of Time" "Same Old Story" "I Won't Have It" and the others live was palpable. They dedicated "Freebase" to Jason Matthews Thirsk and used "I Won't Have It" to rip on Trump and the tensions around the election which is fitting.

After that they said "now its time to have some fun" and did covers of "Minor Threat" by Minor Threat, "Do What You Want" by Bad Religion and "Stand By Me". Then they did their self titled Stephen King song, "My Own Country" with more Trump trashing, "Fuck Authority" and as always finished with "Bro Hymn" which some have called punk's national anthem.

This was an amazing show overall. The bands and audience had a blast and raged against society. Exactly how punk shows should be.