BY MARK SMITTY NEAL | Go Venue Magazine
Rancid‘s new festival The Bash a craft beer and music festival made its stop at New Jersey’s Old Bridge Township Raceway on Sunday June 2. With Sunday’s severe weather storm warnings were lingering around the entire tri-state area, it didn’t affect the festival until the headliners Rancid took the stage. Rancid got just 4 full songs into their set “Roots Radials,” “Radio,” “Journey to the End of the East Bay,” and “Maxwell Murder”, while lightning was striking early into the second song, it wasn’t until the fifth song “The 11th Hour,” when Rancid’s sound was cut and announcement came over the PA systems for everyone to leave and go to their cars for safety. As fans were making their way out of the festival grounds the gods opened up and a fierce downpour hit cancelling any hope of the show continuing.
The festival posted a statement on their social media platform that read, “Safety is our #1 concern. Due to inclement weather, we had to ask all patrons to seek shelter. When we were able to resume the show, the noise curfew with the venue had passed, and we were unable to lawfully continue the show. Thank you for everyone’s understanding, and we look forward to seeing you next year!”
Gates opened early at 12pm for VIP ticket holders 21+ and 2pm for GA ticket holders 21+ to come and begin sampling the more than 100 craft beers that were on hand. At 4pm the show got underway for all ages and kicking it off were New York City hardcore heavyweights Madball who quickly got the pit brewing in true NYHC fashion. Immediately following Madball there was a brief delay before L7 took the stage due to lightning storms in the area, but the show quickly resumed with L7 having their set cut short by only about 10 or 15 minutes. L7‘s set was classic with hits that included “Everglade”, “Shove”, “Shitlist” and “Fast and Frightening”. Donita Sparks would also throw out a Metallica reference towards the shows delay saying “Ride the lightning.”
Legendary thrash veterans Suicidal Tendencies took the stage as always, fueled with the highest of energy, opening with an extended version of “You Can’t Bring Me Down” as every member of the band thrashed about from one side of the stage to the other, jumping all around. During their set, frontman Mike Muir would make his way down to the barriers numerous times singing face to face with the crowd, even at times Mike jumped right into the sea of “Cycos”. Suicidal‘s set was pure classic. Towards the end of the set, guitarist Ben Weiman took to the crowd and walked out, playing as fans held him up a top of the crowd. It wasn’t until the final song of their set that guitarist Weiman climbed up the speakers at the side of the stage for “Pledge Your Allegiance” before taking the leap of about 10 feet to the stage.
Pennywise, was the last band that would take the stage before Rancid. Like L7 and Suicidal Tendencies, Pennywise‘s set was chock-full of classics that included “Fight Til You Die”, “My Own Country”, “Same Old Story”, “Society”, “Fuck Authority” and of course the set closing anthem “Bro Hymm”. During the middle of the band’s set, Jim Lindberg also talked about how they enjoy covering songs of bands they like, and then shouted out Black Flag, Sublime, Circle Jerks, and Minor Threat before playing a piece of songs by each band as they shouted them out before covering Minor Threat’s “Minor Threat”.
The Bash Festival hits Boise, ID June 8th and continues on to Tacoma, WA. on June 9th then returns on June 15th in San Jose, Ca. and then wraps things up in Sacramento, Ca. on June 16th.
Rancid
Pennywise
Suicidal Tendencies
L7
Madball
