Rancid returned to Baltimore last Saturday for one of the final shows of the season at MECU Pavilion. This leg of the summer tour finds the Bay Area’s Rancid, paired with two legendary Southern California punk bands and the mischievous ska-punkers, The Aquabats.
After opening sets on the “Hellcat Acoustic Stage”, Maryland pop-punks Angel Du$t warmed things up, playing to a quickly growing and wildly eager crowd.
Southern California ska-punk superheroes, The Aquabats, played a frenzied set which included songs from their two-decade catalogue, including “Pizza Day!” and “Pool Party!”, complete with inflatable slices of pizza and sharks that bobbed up and down over the crowd during their performance. One young fan surfed the crowd on one of the inflatables from the stage to the back and back again. True to their name, the crowd was doused with water repeatedly throughout the set by singer “MC Bat Commander” (Christian Jacobs).
Following a good bit of dancing from the crowd during The Aquabats set, Suicidal Tendencies played a blistering set, including “You Can’t Bring Me Down” from 1990’s Lights Camera Revolution, an incendiary performance of “Institutionalized” finding singer, “Cyco” Mike Muir, wind his way through the crowd for an old school hardcore sing-along as well as “Subliminal” and “I Shot The Devil”, all from their self-titled debut record. A circle pit opened up multiple times during their set. Muir was an absolute animal.
Pennywise kept the energy going with a set of fan favorites including “My Own Country”, “Society”, “Bro Hymn” and “Fuck Authority”, which they dedicated to headliners Rancid who they noted had been performing just as long as they had, give or take a year. After teasing the crowd with several snippets of cover song choices including DC’s Minor Threat, they ultimately chose Nirvana’s “Territorial Pissings” before later playing a punked-up version of Ben E. King’s classic “Stand by Me”.
Rancid played a 18-song main set and a 4 song encore which was full of older material from 1994’s Let’s Go and 1995’s …And Out Come The Wolves. In addition, they performed a slew of newer tracks from their latest record, 2017’s Troublemaker. Highlights included “Radio” from their second 7-inch single, a solo performance of “The Wars End”, by guitarist Lars Fredericksen, and the one-two punch of “Time Bomb” and “Ruby Soho” to finish off a wonderful night.
Enjoy these photos of Rancid, Pennywise, Suicidal Tendencies, and Aquabats performing at MECU Pavilion on September 21st. All photos copyright and courtesy of Shantel Mitchell Breen.
