30 Years Live

There was a time when I loved Bad Religion up through Generator, but time has narrowed my view, and lately if you'd have asked me, I would have told you that the band only had three albums that were worth a damn...the first one, Suffer and No Control. That was it. Everything else wasn't really worth my time.

I hadn't listened to Bad Religion very much over the past couple of years, but when I was recently stuck in a 1990 playlist, I decided to give Against The Grain a casual listen. I didn't expect it to move me very much, but much to my surprise, that album really sunk it's hooks in me, and I was listening to it daily.

At one point in my life, I had a Bad Religion Against The Grain shirt from the one time that I'd seen them live back in the early 90's. I hadn't worn that shirt for probably 10 years, but seeing how I was currently obsessed with the band, I wanted to dig it out and wear it. The problem was, I couldn't find it anywhere.

Desperately needing a t-shirt fix, I hit up the Bad Religion store. I was really digging the "Television" design, and noticed there was a package deal with the shirt and a copy of the new live album.

Celebrating a 30 year career, there were a lot of songs on this album that I wasn't familiar with at all. I was so obsessed with the band, that I figured that I'd take a chance on it, and maybe find some hidden gems that would shine through in the live setting.

The gamble pays off, because this album is great. You know, I'm not really into the live album format, but here it works, and has got me thinking that I've got to dig into those albums post-Generator.