(Live Review) BLACK FLAG - St. Charles, IL (8/9/24)

By

The Beard & Little Johnny

Greetings friends, fans, and followers, it is your reviewing duo The Beard and Little Johnny as we report from the Arcada Theater in St. Charles, Illinois and our #45th show and #158th band of the 2024 season. Tonight, the Beard & the lad went back in time to the late 1970’s / early 1980’s for one of punk rocks enduring acts ... Black Flag.

Formed as far back as 1976, (although they called themselves Panic back then), guitarist and founder Greg Ginn wanted to pattern his band after the atonal stripped-down sound being exhibited at the time by bands like the Ramones and the Stooges. Due to name confusion, Ginn switched the band name to Black Flag and began touring under that moniker in January of 1979 (along with the now iconic four black bar logo that Ginn said reflected anarchy).

Although the bands relentless self-promotion did get them noticed over the next few years, it was not until 1981 and the addition of vocalist Henry Rollins and his more serious poet attitude towards the songs that Black Flag began to get recognized in a more widespread fashion. Shows with Rollins often led to chaos and even fistfights on the stage between the singer and his audience. By this time punk was a cultural thing with bands like The Circle Jerks, and the merger of the Misfits into what would become Danzig and Black Flag drawing power was becoming bigger.

The band would reach its peak in 1983-1986 with releases like My War, Slip it In & Loose Nut (which ironically pretty much makes up the Beard's entire catalog of Black Flag.) Despite touring 150+ dates a year through this time, true commercial success eluded Black Flag and near the end of 1986 Ginn decided to call it quits and shelve the band.

While vocalist Henry Rollins continued on to success with the Rollins Band and eventually his own spoken word shows, Ginn (other than a few one offs) kept Black Flag on the shelf for a quarter century before attempting a reformation in 2013. Since Rollins was not coming back, Ginn recruited vocalist Ron Reyes, drummer Greg Moore and eventually bassist Dave Klein. Their new release What the.. was a critical failure. Adding to the turmoil, former members of Black Flag decided to join up as a separate act and tour as Flag but performing Black Flag songs. As always happens in those situations, it was time for the courts as Ginn filed a trademark infringement suit, but was unable to legally prevail.

In a highly unusual job coup, at a show in 2013, an Australian skater named Mike Vallely jumped onstage and took the microphone from Reyes then sang the last two numbers. After the show Reyes quit citing “difficulties” and Vallely became the new lead singer. Not surprisingly more lineup changes continued until 2022 when Black Flag finally embarked on a proper North American tour with Ginn, Vallely, and Charles Wiley on drums. Black Flag went through two more bassists before ending up with Matt Baxter just this year.

In total during their roughly twenty functional years, (over the last forty-eight,) Black Flag has had five singers, twelve bassists, and ten drummers, so ideally the Beard will not presume what makes Black Flag authentic other than Ginn still on the guitar. Like everyone, I would love to see Henry Rollins behind the mic, but since that is not going to happen at least Vallely has been there a consistent decade.

BLACK FLAG   

To begin with, on a Friday night, the Arcada had less than 150 people for this show. An extremely poor draw no matter how you look at it, although, in their defense, Metallica was playing Chicago’s Soldiers Field that night and thus accounted for at least 37,000 people. Not surprisingly, other than drummer Charles Wiley, the boys look pretty weathered. Kind of like if the local VFW decided they were going to form a punk music band.

They started off with “Can’t Decide” from My War and then played the entire Nervous Breakdown EP. By the third number, and for the first time since its remodeling, the Arcada got slam dancing. Little Johnny was actually circling up front as Arcada at least had the good sense to remove the chairs in the first few rows, (which given the low turnout was where virtually all the fans on the main floor ended up going.)

Black Flag was six songs in before I really knew anything, but finally I was rewarded with back-to-back “Black Coffee” and “Six Pack” before they played the remainder of the My War album to end the first set. Black Flag did still sound very reminiscent of the Ramones, and by the sixth song, we had our first crowd surfer, (and it wasn’t even Johnny.) Once again, for the Arcada, crowd surfing was not something I had seen here.

Some of the Black Flag material approached stoner doom as far as the pacing and tone. It was similar to the punk and doom of early Saint Vitus (before the Wino years.) Although this pacing reflected Ginn's fascination with acts like Sabbath and Hendrix, it was still a little odd for punk. I will say Vallely can do a decent Rollins on some of these numbers, which is nice since the Rollins era is all I really knew. When the band started “Fucked Up,” I saw Johnny leading the crowd chant. Nothing like a bunch of 50+ year olds being led by a cap wearing beer drinking micromaniac all yelling “FUCKED…. UP!!!!” over and over.

After a twenty-minute break, and potentially a short nap for Ginn, set two started with “I’ve heard it before” and kept to the shorter, punchy hardcore stuff. The crowd seemed to like that material and Johnny was circling all around, knees-be-damned as he bounced off chairs lost in his mosh. There was a good drum solo by Wiley because he did not try to be fancy, just speed punk. Honestly, the only song in the second set I was sure I knew was “Slip it In.” That one had a good one-two punch with Ginn guitar leads and Baxter’s bass work and was one of the shows high points. Baxter enjoyed the crowd support and busted out an entertaining bass solo, again nothing fancy just short and fast.

On Black Flag's final number, we got a few stage divers before security brought in their biggest yellow shirted gorillas on each side to shut that down. I could see the disappointment on Johnny’s face as he realized he had likely missed his one opportunity to dive off the Arcada stage. “There’s always the Cher tribute act next month little dude.” Once again, I never thought I would see stage diving at the Arcada.

Black Flag's encore was an exceedingly long and amazingly sloppy punk version of “Louie Louie.” After forty-eight years Greg Ginn still cannot play that song and when he is not playing Black Flag specific music, Ginn is probably the worst technical musician on the stage. Oh well, that’s punk for you. After defiling the memory of the Kingsmen, Vallely led the crowd in another chorus of AARP members yelling “Fucked…UP!!!” for several minutes. This ended the Black Flag experience. Given the show and the draw, my bet is Onesti does not re-book them for next year.    

As we filed out, Little Johnny bought a patch with the anarchy logo and said, “Punk music is fun Beard. Why aren’t we going to more shows like that?” “Talk to your uncle Chris little dude.” (Ed: Don't worry Johnny, you're gonna love the Supersuckers.) As for the Beard, I will cross this one off the never-ending bucket list, but I am afraid the nostalgia only buys Black Flag a 78/100.

As always, thanks for checking out our weekly live concert reviews right here on your site for punk and metal, The Mighty Decibel. Stay tuned every week for the best in live shows and reviews. Remember to check out the TikTok page at thebeard0728 and of course follow our non-metal column by following and friending Mark McQueen on Facebook. Until we review again, this is the Beard & Little Johnny saying ... Live Life, Stay Heavy & Horns Up.