The highly anticipated Let The Bad Times Roll tour featuring: The Offspring, Sum 41, and Simple Plan stormed through FivePoint Amphitheatre in Irvine, CA this past weekend. When you’ve got punk icons/hometown heroes like The Offspring headlining alongside two of the biggest bands of the 2000’s, you end up with a sold out show that felt more like a summer BBQ than a typical gigantic concert production.
Sum 41 kicked the night off with a blistering dusk set. The sun was still fading behind the FivePoint grandstands, yet the venue was already almost full. With the recent announcement of Sum 41’s impending breakup after their upcoming final album, Heaven :x: Hell, it appears that every rock ‘n’ roll fiend in SoCal showed up early to catch one of Sum 41’s final performances.
From the moment they launched into “Motivation,” the 12,000 or so fans in attendance remained firmly in front man Deryck Whibley’s hands. Much like their 2001 breakthrough album, Sum 41’s nine song set was all killer, no filler. Whibley ran around the stage interacting with the mob of elated fans down front, while guitarists Dave Baksh and Tom Thacker shredded the night away. It should come as no surprise that the masterful amalgamation of pop hooks and metal oomph Sum 41 perfected on song’s like “Over My Head (Better Off Dead)” and “In Too Deep” translates phenomenally well in a live setting.
Fans sang their hearts out during the melodic bridge in “Fat Lip” and thrashed around like maniacs during “Still Waiting.” In an unexpected turn, the band busted out a ferocious cover of Rage Against The Machine’s “Sleep Now In The Fire,” which prompted even more headbanging than usual. Hopefully Sum 41 will borrow a page from the KISS retirement playbook and stretch their farewell tour out for a few years. If not, you need to get yourself to one of their next shows, immediately.
Simple Plan had the arduous task of following Sum 41 on stage, but guess what—Pierre Bouvier and the gang came out swinging! The band opened with “I’d Do Anything,” and the already hyped crowd went nuts. That summer time BBQ party vibe morphed into a 12,000-seat karaoke session as the audience came close to drowning out Mr. Bouvier’s vocals on songs like “Shut Up!,” “Addicted,” and “Welcome to My Life.” Simple Plan decided to feed red meat to the ravenous crowd when they performed a medley of early 2000’s cover songs from Smash Mouth, Avril Lavigne and The Killers. You haven’t heard “Mr. Brightside” until you’ve experienced thousands of liquored up punks shouting the lyrics like their high school reunions depended on it.
Finally, The Offspring stepped up to a sold out, hometown Orange County crowd and just knocked it out of the park. They opened the night with “Come Out and Play” and the large outdoor venue transformed into a sweaty all ages club almost instantly. Dexter Holland and co. are like a fine-tuned machine at this point in the game, and the addition of new drummer Brandon Pertzborn appeared to make the band even faster and more efficient.
When you’ve had a career as long and fruitful as The Offspring you eventually run into the dreaded setlist problem; aka: when you have so many classics in your repertoire, which ones do you play every night and which do you exclude? The bulk of their set was split between material from Smash and Americana, essentially the monster hits. Of course this being the Let The Bad Times Roll tour, it would have ruled hearing a few more songs from their recent album of the same name. How about a little “This Is Not Utopia” on the next run eh fellas? Either way, the band ripped through jams like “Staring At The Sun” and “Hammerhead” with the same zeal as showstoppers like “Bad Habit” and their epic closer, “Self Esteem.” In short, the good times rolled all night.
Sum 41
Simple Plan
The Offspring
