The Bags’ Facebook page has this intro: “We love writing songs, playing loudly, and all things ROCK.” Which is exactly what this blog is all about! So when the Bags announced a 40th anniversary show in the Boston area, in the middle of winter, we had to go! Well it’s a little more involved than that…
My wife and I have been listening to a lot of the Bags lately (this is Boston, not LA). Their first album, “Rock Starve” on Restless Records was a staple on college radio, particularly on my station, KSDT, where “Spread It Around” was in heavy rotation, as I’m sure it was on a lot of college rock stations. There are also tapes out there of me and a local guest band singing along to “Big Wig” on the air somewhere. I somehow lost touch with the Bags, probably because their other 5 albums were basically self-released. My wife, being from Boston, sure didn’t. She would crank up the albums these past few years and wow! Some were even better than “Rock Starve”! She would see them all the time back in the day and so when they scheduled a “40th Anniversary” show in the Boston area, in the middle of winter, she said “We got to go!” So we did!
The Bags play hard driving heavy punk rock with blazing solos. Think Black Sabbath, crossed with maybe Husker Du, with a little bit of Van Halen thrown in with some witty lyrics that could’ve been inspired by comedian Steve Martin. Their guitarist, Crispin Wood, is a master of the craft, and completely shreds on guitar. I mentioned “Van Halen” in that the way he plays, I don’t think any two shows could be the same. He shares vocal duties with bassist Jon Hardy, and on drums is Jim Janota (who also was a founding member of Boston legends Upper Crust). And to my knowledge, in 40 years, they have never had a member leave or a lineup change, which is pretty impressive. How many other bands could say the same thing?
This was also their 2nd show in over 11 years, so this was a big deal. And not just for us, but everyone in the Boston area, as the Crystal Ballroom was completely at capacity (400+ people) on a snowy Saturday night. And if that wasn’t enough, this was also a release party for the reissue of their “Swamp Oaf” album. It’s being advertised as their “2nd album”, but from what I hear, it was actually a side project where the Bags went under the alias “Swamp Oaf” to play “whatever they wanted to” which was a little bit more unconventional music and a little experimental at times.
So the Bags came out on stage to a packed ballroom wearing “O”, “A”, and “F” on their shirts and proceeded to rock the place for 75 minutes. Smiles all around as they played a bunch of classic Bags songs and some not so classic Bags songs. They opened with “I Smell A Rat” (!) and went through songs throughout their whole catalog, including a couple from the “Swamp Oaf” project/album. Now this is going to sound like a complaint, but it’s not. It’s actually a testament to how amazingly great the Bags are: This show was great as is (the sound was fantastic!), but you also could’ve made an amazing setlist with the songs they left out! So while classics like “Try It”, “Spread It Around”, “Atomic Coconuts”, “Joyride” and “Cavemen Rejoice” were played, there were so many that weren’t played like “Radio Tower”, “Thank You”, “Volume Freak”, “Bagpipe”, “Ivan The Terrible”, “Banana Peel”, “I Know”, “Naked Lady”, “Big Wig”, “Eye Of The Goat”, and “Egg”. Of course when you have so many great songs and limited time, there has to be some that are cut out. Maybe they should have done two nights!
Also at this show, they had a major announcement: They’re recording a new album! With Dave Minehan (from local legends the Neighborhoods, but more internationally known as guitarist for Paul Westerberg, and for the Replacements reunions) producing! They played a couple songs off it that sounded like vintage Bags. So definitely an album on my watch list for 2025.
Here’s the pictures:
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