As soon as tickets for this went on sale, I was IN. And it was worth every single cent. First of all, it was worth it just for the Queers, who are always just amazing and I think Joe King is simply one of the best songwriters out there. Secondly, despite being a fan for well over 30 years now, I have never seen Screeching Weasel before and they’re one of my absolute favorite bands in this genre (which is basically Ramones-core pop-punk). I was new to Toxic Energy and so they were an added bonus to this fantastic night.
I got to give a huge heartfelt “thank you” to Joe King for getting me a photo pass for this! No hassles. Easy as pie. Thank you Joe!!!
Ok, so Toxic Energy started the set. They’re pure punk rock via Orange County. So think Social Distortion meets Black Flag. They had a pretty metallish song too, which is welcome in my world. They did a pretty cool cover of the Cars’ “Just What I Needed” which is on their “Songs We Wish We Wrote” EP. Good band. I would totally see them again.
The lighting was pretty bad (and more likely, the lens I have on my camera isn’t the best for taking pictures in dark places), but I did the best with what I could do. I would’ve whipped out my cell phone to get better pictures, but didn’t want to look like an amateur in the photo pit. lol
The Queers were GREAT! How could they not be? They’re the perfect mishmash of the Ramones and the Beach Boys (and usually at the same time). They got a bunch of standards which I guess they have to play (“I Hate Everything”, “Ursula Finally Has Tits”, “Monster Zero”, etc..), but they shook up the setlist quite a bit today! They brought out Stephen Brookfield of the 99ers to do a 66ers song. The 66ers are basically an all-star band also doing pop punk, but with an even more Beach Boys slant to it. Their album, “Have More Fun” is excellent and kind of flew under the radar for me (2025 was an incredible year for music! There was just too much amazing music coming out that year). Then Joe gave Stephen his guitar and they did “Mrs Brown You’ve Got An Ugly Daughter” which just blew me away as that’s one of my absolute favorite Queers songs. The Queers also did “Born To Do Dishes” and “Janelle, Janelle”. Fantastic fucking set. They brought out Chris from Jon Cougar Concentration Camp (who also was in the Queers for a few tours and albums) to play the last 4 songs with them. There was a pit during the Queers whole set and I got to say it was the most coolest pit I’ve ever seen (and I’ve been seeing these stupid things since 1983). People just dancing in a circle (counter-clockwise, of course), but no one was trying to “out punk” another or show off. Just having fun feeding off all the energy that the Queers were putting out. Little girls were in the pit (this was an all ages show; they couldn’t have been more than 9 years old), people all arm in arm running around in a circle, just having fun, dancing to dance and have fun, not to punch others and then run away. It was nice to see.
I’ve been a fan of Screeching Weasel since 1993 or so when I was at party at Al Flipside’s place and Thrashead shoved this CD of “Wiggle” in my face telling me that I would like this. He was wrong. I didn’t like it. I LOVED IT! Wow! I ended up being such a fan of Screeching Weasel that I almost wrote fan letter to Ben Weasel to tell him how much they meant to me. In retrospect, it was a good thing I didn’t because I probably would have just embarrassed myself, but what else is new? This was my first time seeing them live, as on previous times when they went to LA or San Diego, I was either out of town, at a different show, and/or the tour disintegrated due to the volatile nature of the classic line up.
Now word on the street is that this is just Ben Weasel and friends. And ok, maybe that is the case, but he sure knows how to choose his friends! Yeah, this was not the “classic” lineup, but like the classic lineup, everyone here had a distinct personality, look, and totally fit the band. It worked. It really worked. You can tell they loved the songs they were playing and were happy to be up there. Hell, I wish I could’ve been up there playing! And what a great setlist. All the “hits”. “My Brain Hurts”. “Veronica Hates Me”. “Totally”. “Falling Apart”. “Joanie Loves Johnny”. “Slogans”. “Hey Suburbia!” So many. At a little over an hour, I’m sure they could’ve played a lot more “hits”, but damn, they did a great job representing their whole catalog, especially the “classic” stuff”, and they did it pretty amazingly. Ben Weasel, who also had an excellent column in Maximumrocknroll in the ’90s, is never afraid to speak his mind and is no stranger to controversy. He made some excellent points about punk rockers being “outsiders”, but if you don’t conform to their exact set of rules, you get ostracized. So he said he (and most of us here) are “outsiders to the outsiders”, which I can totally relate to. What could be more punk than that?
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