Bad Religion Joined By Reunited Boston Punks The Explosion For Two Nights In New York

August 7, 2019 Mark Smitty Neal Concert Reviews Comments Off

BY MARK SMITTY NEAL | Go Venue Magazine

Saturday August 3rd on an already very hot and muggy New York City night The Explosion and Bad Religion pulled into Brooklyn to heat up things up even further at Brooklyn Steel.

The Boston punk band The Explosion reunited to join So Cal’s Bad Religion for two shows in New York, the first August 2nd at Webster Hall in Manhattan and the other on August 3rd at Brooklyn Steel in Brooklyn, both which were quickly sold out.

The Explosion took to the stage and waisted no time turning up the heat on an already hot night as they started their set with “It Aint Right” with was featured on the bands last recorded album Bury Me Standing. The Explosion ripped through a 15 song set of fan favs like “Filthy & Insane” and “God Bless The S.O.S.”. During the intros of songs lead frontman Matt Hock took time to crack jokes with the fans saying “Nope we’re done yet, we’re actually gonna play another song and then we’re gonna play some more songs and then there’s a 45 minute set change, then finally Bad Religion will play”. The bands energy and stage presence that night was on fire, the sound was tight, and if you weren’t a fan then I’m sure you were after, and I’m sure you would have never guessed that the guys hadn’t played live together since 2016.

The Explosion:

Setlist:

It Ain’t Right
Filthy & Insane
God Bless The S.O.S.
All The Best
Reactor
The Ideal
I Know
Tarantulas Attack!
Image Of A Sun
Here I Am
N.Y.C.D.
Points West
Warning
If You Don’t Know
No Revolution

Hot off their recently released 17th studio album Age of Unreason, the legendary So Cal punks Bad Religion took to the stage greeted by a roaring of cheers from fans at the sold out Brooklyn Steel.

With the stage already hot from The Explosion‘s prior set, Bad Religion wasted no time and got right into it with “Them and Us” and was followed by “End of History” which would be fans first taste of the new music live. Bad Religion put on a show for masses as fans surfed their way across the crowd and over the barriers through out the entire evening as the band played a incredible tight 27 song setlist spanning through their career of almost 40 years that included their most iconic fan favs like “Fuck You”, “Social Suicide”, “21st Century (Digital Boy)”, and “New Dark Ages”. Their amazing hour and a half long setlist also included the entire B-side of 1989’s No Control, which frontman Greg Graffin explained “last night we played the entire first side of No Control so tonight for you we’re gonna play the entire B-side” then joked by saying “You would have to own the vinyl record to know exactly what I’m talking about”, and introduced “Henchman”.

After blazing through the B-side of No Control the band went into yet another heavy fan fav “Atomic Garden”, with the set soon coming to an end there were still a couple more songs before the band would play “Sorrow” which saw the entire crowd singing along at high volume word for word, at the end of the song the band would walk off stage only to return for their encore that featured two of the bands most iconic songs to date “Infected” and then finally ending an already incredible show and an amazing set by burning the roof right off Brooklyn Steel with “American Jesus”.

As sweat covered fans made their way out of the venue there was a constant of chatter about how great the show, and it was. All around great, both The Explosion and Bad Religion both played great tight sounding set full of energy that poured pure fun.

Bad Religion:

Setlist: