Pennywise no Wros Fest em São Paulo

Resenha originalmente publicada no site gringo Punknews.org

Only three days after the announcement that Jim Lindberg was back in Pennywise, the vocalist made his comeback at the Wros Fest in São Paulo, Brazil. Interestingly enough, Lindberg had left the band years ago after refusing to tour South America, which was the last straw in their already damaged relationship. But no grudges were held and Lindberg was very well received by the 4,000 people present at Espaço das Américas last Sunday night. After several concerts in Brazil, Pennywise has a large fanbase in the country that was anxious to see the band once more, either with Zoli Teglas or Lindberg.

Following an energetic performance by Anti-Flag, the foursome took the large stage opening the show with "Wouldn't It Be Nice," immediately leading to the formation of a huge circle pit and loud singalong by the audience, mixed between untiring youngsters and nostalgic 30-somethings of both genders. The setlist compiled songs from their debut until Land Of The Free?, as their last album with Teglas, All or Nothing, was completely ignored. Whether this was because of an absolute lack of time for Lindberg to learn the new songs or a sign that the reformed band will ignore this year's release for now on is open to speculation.

The fact is that classic tunes like "Homesick," "Same Old Story" and "Pennywise" were very well received but the post Jason Thirsk era was privileged as "Fight Till You Die," "Society," "Broken," "What If I," "Date With Destiny," "You'll Never Make It," "My Own Country," "Can't Believe," "My Own Way," "Alien," "Fuck Authority" and "My God" were all played to great response by the audience. Their classic cover of Ben E King's "Stand By Me" was not forgotten either and of course "Bro Hymn" closed the presentation with a lot of singalong from the fans. All according to the script, but very well done and exciting enough since the songs speak for themselves.

As for the band's onstage performance, unlike Anti-Flag before them and Rise Against after, Pennywise didn't rely on rehearsed stage moves and acrobatics and their somewhat advanced age did show, but the lack of physical mobility didn't take anything away from their presentation and the crowd were just too excited singing, jumping, pushing and shoving to care. Lindberg's singing was very good and Fletcher Dragge, Randy Bradbury and Byron McMakin were very comfortable as their experience and absolute control of the situation showed, despite the poor quality of the sound, especially for those further from the stage. That, of course, should be put on the production's account rather than the band's though. In two words: great comeback.

Green Day - ¡Uno! (2012)

Resenha originalmente publicada no site gringo Punknews.org

The first part of Green Day's career is a natural evolution between the formation of the band and the release of Warning, in 2000. The second part starts with the release of American Idiot and is determined by the trio's decision to embrace rock stardom and begin to pose as an arena rock act that writes big sounding rock operas and puts on a show filled with fireworks and other gimmicks. The release of ¡Uno! marks the moment when these two separate eras meet. The new album is part of a huge and pretentious trilogy of records, but at the same time features simpler pop rocks that could have perfectly been released around 2002.

The record starts very well with four good pop punk songs in "Nuclear Family," "Stay The Night," "Carpe Diem" (which sounds a bit like Shenanigans' "Suffocate") and "Let Yourself Go," the punkiest sounding song of the release and arguably the best. After the danceable break of "Kill The DJ," ¡Uno! comes back to its Nimrod-esque sound alternating between "punkier" songs like "Loss of Control," "Angel Blue" and "Rusty James" (whose verses remind "Scattered" quite a lot), and '60s pop influenced songs like "Fell For You", "Sweet 16" and the Foxboro Hot Tubs-sounding "Troublemaker," until reaching its end with the too long "Oh Love".

If the 12 songs go down easily in 41 minutes and ¡Uno! flows nicely between typical Green Day pop punks and '60s infused pop rocks, the singles choices are quite puzzling, since both "Oh Love" and "Kill The DJ" are neither super catchy nor musically represent the record at all. They are not bad songs, really. They are just not very good ones either. But while "Oh Love" fits well as an album ending, "Kill The DJ" just seems incredibly out of place. Actually, it gives the impression that Billie Joe Armstrong and Co. were trying to sound like late Clash, but achieved a Franz Ferdinand-like track that doesn't sound like Green Day at all.

One ill-fitting song is far from ruining the album, though. If you're the kind of person that can look past the make-up, the rehearsed stage moves and the exaggerated use of the word "fuck" for 40-year-olds, and simply listen to the music of ¡Uno!, you're probably gonna enjoy this record. In fact, it's quite hard to dislike it if you're a fan of Nimrod and Warning. All in all, the album is far from being mind-blowing and is very unlikely to change the face of rock 'n' roll (or even the band's current status in the music scene), but is a breath of fresh air and simplicity in Green Day's career and should please both long time and opera rock era fans.