Legitimate old-school punks Agent Orange played an impressive variety of material at their Larimer Lounge show on Friday. Photo of previous show from .
Everything does turn gray, just as Mike Palm has screamed for the past three decades. Well, everything but the band’s constantly fresh surf punk sound, and evidently Palm’s hair. The trio showed off their slash and burn style at the on Friday night in front of a tightly-packed house of punk rockers sporting more body ink than the current Nuggets bench, and an old- school appreciation for hairspray. There were more than a few impressive sets of liberty spikes, stand-up mohawks and a couple of pompadours thrashing through the mosh pit, and nearly all were matched with a plethora of tattoos.
Joined onstage by drummer Dusty Watson and bassist Perry Giordano, Palm led Agent Orange through a 55-minute set spearheaded by signature surf-metal-meets-spy-movie-soundtrack guitar. Coupled with sneering adolescent lyrics full of defiance, heartbreak and inflamed punk rock angst, their set easily recalled some of the best of early ‘80s West Coast hardcore. For young punks it was a chance to witness one of the bands that helped to start the genre. For the old-school punks, it was a chance to revisit the fury of those teenage mosh pits fueled by a clean brand of hardcore that culled more of its sound from surf greats like Link Wray and the legendary Dick Dale than from Ramones or Stooges, and kept all of the latter bands’ anti-authority fury.
The two crowds got what they came for, and then some, from the legendary Orange County trio.
The band started off with a bombastic cover of the Bel Airs’ “Mr. Moto” and never looked back. They tore through most of their first album “Living in Darkness,” including “Everything Turns Grey,” “A Cry for Help in a World Gone Mad” and “No Such Thing,” and added some from later recordings like “Say It Isn’t True” and “I Kill Spies.”
Palm made a point once to wax elegiacally about the recent death of Cramps frontman Lux Interior before the band dived into “Too Young to Die.” Later, they ripped through more covers, including Dead Kennedys’ “Police Truck” and Marshall Crenshaw’s “Let Her Dance” (after suggesting a “girls only” mosh pit).
At one point Palm remarked that he had “…the only job in the world where you should get a raise if you break a lot of shit,” referring to the current tour. The trio earned its raise Friday night, most notably during the signature “Bloodstains,” when a central part of the song was stretched to allow them to fix what looked to be some trouble with effects pedals (although, to be fair, the crowd in front had pulled down the microphone to sing along, and may have inadvertently disconnected a few cords). Palm reacted smoothly, finished the hit and plunged into Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love.”
They closed with “The Last Goodbye,” Palm’s guitar sporting a broken tuning key, and missing at least one string. He never missed a lick.
Billy Thieme is a Denver-based writer, an old-school punk and a huge follower of Denver’s vibrant local music scene. Follow Billy’s giglist at
