Al Capone is in town…. No, wait a minute, its Social Distortion, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the 1990’s self-titled album, on the last day of their European tour. The night promised a revival for those who lived in the nineties, mohawks, jackets and beaten jeans invaded Shepherds Bush Empire on a Sunday evening just before a lazy bank holiday. Although punk had thrived in England in the middle of the seventies, it did spread to the USA too, arriving at Social Distortion’s door in California. They learned from hits of Ramones, Sex Pistols and The Clash, creating the key album of their career; Social Distortion.
Social Distortion @ Shepherd Bush Empire (Jessica Lotti)
With British punctuality, Social Distortion entered the stage at 9.30pm, opening the night with So Far Away and performing 9 of the 10 tracks of the self tittle album. In between songs, Mike Ness shared with the crowd some of his childhood memories, musical influences and previous gigs at SBE. “This building is full of a rock n’ roll and soul!” and they dedicate the song A Place In My Heart to The Clash.
Shepherd Bush Empire (Jessica Lotti)
Mike also recalled when he was about 5 or 6 years old, it was common to hear The Beatles and Rolling Stones in his house, which he listened to until he was about 17 years old, when then he finally discovered the Sex Pistols; “Thank you guys for all!” giving way to play a Rolling Stones cover of ‘Wild Horses’.
Songs from the album Somewhere Between Heaven And Hell (1992), were not left out of this tour: they played Cold Feeling with the impressive guitar solo from Jonny “Two Bags” Wickersham and the very slow paced 99 To Life, where Johnny Cash’s influences are strongly appeciated. Mike delcared to the younger fans that they should not try to make the same thing at home “The song is a poem, with strong and violent words, but it is just a poem; You know what I mean”.
Social Distortion @ Shepherd Bush Empire (Jessica Lotti)
Joking with the audience, Mike offered £300 to the person who knew what song from Social Distortion album was missing to be performed, and one fan chanted “Ring of Fire”
So Mike replied “Give £300 cash to this man… Do you want to hear a Cash song? I think we do this song and go to sleep. Are you ready?” and then started to play the characteristic notes, accompanied by the rapid battery of David Hidalgo Jr’s drums. In the first line of the song, Mike had to stop and change the guitar, he justified: “If I play out of tone, this will make you guys sing out of tune, making ME out of the tune too”. With the right chords the band started over and made the people who were sitting up on the galleries stand up to sing and dance along.
(Jessica Lotti)
The album was released causing a commotion, starting from its cover, which has Al Capone in a brutal attitude, kicking a door down, an empty bottle and a sexy Marilyn Monroe dressed in fine stockings. That’s punk blues, breaking the barriers of music with sensuality and a touch of drunkenness…and that is what we got tonight!
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Review by Stella Bruk. Social Distortion May 3, 2015
Photographs by Jessica Lotti
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