Martinez Tribune The website of the Martinez Tribune.
BY DANIEL GLUSKOTER
Formed over 40 years ago in the garages of Southern California, seminal LA punk band X, one of the most influential bands of their era, brought their farewell tour to the Guild Theatre in Menlo Park for the first of their only two Bay Area appearances Monday night.
John Doe, DJ Bonebreak and Exene Cervenka (pictured left to right) perform during X’s “The End is Near” farewell tour at the Guild Theatre in Menlo Park Monday night.
Proclaiming their newly released Smoke & Fiction as their final studio album, original band members lead vocalist Exene Cervenka, guitarist and bassist John Doe, guitarist Billy Zoom and drummer DJ Bonebreak are all back on board for what the band is labeling “The End is Near” tour.
Crashing the punk scene like a meteor shower setting off a 6.5 earthquake, the bands April 1980 release of their debut album Los Angeles jump started the punk movement. Doe and Cervenka’s songwriting partnership propelled both Los Angeles and the bands sophomore effort, 1981’s Wild Gift far into the middle of Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Appearing just weeks after the release of Smoke & Fiction, their ninth studio album but just second in over thirty years, X’s catalog is littered with so much universally recognized quality material that it’s yet another glaring act of stupidity by the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame that the band wasn’t inducted many years ago.
X performs at the sold out Guild Theatre Monday night.
Performing at the intimate Guild with a capacity of 500, X’s supercharged 22 song 80 minute set opened with “Beyond and Back’ and “It’s Who You Know” from Wild Gift, quickly leaving no doubt that this tour wouldn’t strictly be about promoting new material. In fact, it wouldn’t be until a few songs later, after playing “White Girl,” that any new cuts would make their first appearance.
Always a critical darling, Smoke & Fiction does nothing to detract from X’s legacy. It’s yet another stellar effort that fits nicely into the bands catalog while showing no signs of decline in spite of Exene and Bonebrake being the groups youngest members while in their late sixties. Like their their 2020 comeback album Alphabetland, it’s filled with fast paced two and a half minute rockers marking just the second time since 1985’s Ain’t Love Grand that the bands core four have produced an album together.
X performs at the Guild Theatre Monday night.
“Sweet Til the Bitter End” and “Flipside,” the first of four new tracks played, set the stage for a pair of X’s most recognizable hits. “The Hungry Wolf” from 1982’s Under The Big Black Sun is one of the bands longer songs, checking in at just under four minutes, and thankfully so. With its catchy driving riff the track provides a sensory pleasure, as does “Breathless.” The fast paced Otis Blackwell composition popularized by Jerry Lee Lewis was covered by X in the Richard Gere remake of the movie of the same name that was released the following year.
As the set progressed, three straight songs from Los Angeles would take the crowd back to the bands earliest days. “Your Phone’s Off the Hook, But You’re Not,” the lead off song from the first album, would lead to the frenetic title track in all its two minute and 25 second glory followed by “Nausea.” A couple songs later the group would close its set by once again putting its own stamp on a lively cover of “Soul Kitchen” by The Doors.
Exene Cervenka and John Doe of X perform an encore duet of “See How They Are” at the Guild Theatre.
With just Doe and Cervenka returning to the small stage for an acoustic duet of “See How We Are,” the lush harmonies by the one time married couple from another lifetime ago brought a crowd that just moments earlier was in a frenzy to a uniformly shivered hush. With Zoom and Bonebreak returning, the band would finish its setlist with “Water & Wine,” the sole song from Alphabetland, and a raucous rendition of “Devil Doll” from 1983’s More Fun in the New World.
Whether it really is the end for this pioneering band or just a precursor, the chance to see one of the greatest live bands ever perform their magic at least one last time should not be missed, especially with the intimacy that a majority of the 25 smaller theatre’s X has booked between now and the end of the tour October 30th in Columbia, SC.
As fast paced as their performances, X’s “The End is Near” tour continues with shows in Boise, Spokane, Olympia and Portland before the weekend is over.
