Buzzcocks (recap)

Good show. Blazingly hot at the Double Door, everybody sweating. The crowd was very mixed -- fogies, hipsters, tattooed hooligans, punks-n-posers, frat boys (?) with their dates, that kind of thing.

The Buzzcocks came on around 11:30 p.m., after a lengthy period where roadies were trying to hoist their banner for like 20 minutes, a very Spinal Tappish moment, until they finally got it up and people cheered.

Buzzcocks looked old (cuz they are -- like in their early 50s, now), but they were nice and tight, played a good mix of new and old tunes. Old ones included "Orgasm Addict", "What Do I Get?" "Ever Fallen in Love?", "Autonomy", "Noise Annoys", and "Fast Cars" (I was amused at that one, because I shouted out "FAST CARS!!" while they were between songs and that was the one they played next. I don't think they heard me; it was just the next one in their setlist.)

The crowd went nice and wild -- so often, Chicago crowds are too polite for their own good, but this crowd got into it straightaway, with people jumping and pogoing and slamdancing and otherwise getting wild. There was even some periodic stagediving, which got the divers tackled by the security.

It looked like Mohawk Night, with lots of kids sporting the old look, perhaps wanting to see some old-school punks in action. Most of them didn't slam, oddly enough. I wanted to get into the mix, but was wearing sandals, and figured slamdancing wasn't appropriate for a 36-year-old fella, anyway. But I did vigorously pogo in grand tradition during some of my fave tunes of theirs, and was absolutely drenched with sweat by the end of the show, which was a brisk 45-minute affair with about 15 minutes' worth of encores -- they played song after song, with (almost) no break between them.

Pete Shelley's gained some old-guy weight, but Steve Diggle looked like he was having a blast, doing some vigorous guitarwork and enthusiastic stagecraft flourishes.

I missed the first openers, but caught the Adored, who didn't really stand out to me. They're an LA band, I guess -- sounded like the Strokes channeling Interpol (kind of) with a little Dead Boys thrown in for seasoning (??) Didn't quite work for me, and they didn't appear to energize the crowd too much, who were all eager for the Buzzcocks to play.

Anyway, good show. If the Buzzcocks are in your town, you should catch them while they're still around -- they've still got the touch, and they're throwing in new songs off their recent albums, so it's not just a nostalgia tour.