Bad Religion

30 Years Live

Written by: PP on 07/06/2010 21:25:36

30 years is a landmark only the fewest bands reach, but what makes Bad Religion even more impressive is that they're still releasing seminal material every couple of years or so and touring on a regular basis. To celebrate the three decades, the band has embarked on a world wide 30 year anniversary tour, starting from the United States with twenty dates in four House Of Blue venus in California - including an impressive 8 sold out nights at the Anaheim locale in the space of just 30 days - leading to a couple of European tours this summer. During those dates, the band recorded a bunch of songs while performing and released the compilation - simply titled "30 Years Live" - for free to anyone who signed up on their mailing list. Kudos.

When you have 14 full lengths under you belt to choose from, you're gonna have a hard time choosing just what to play during a show that spans just 17 songs. That's why no songs from "No Control", "The New America", and more surprisingly, "The Process Of Belief" have not made it onto the compilation. But it speaks volumes of just how strong the Bad Religion back catalogue is in reality when you can hardly complain about the track selections on this record. You have "Fuck Armageddon, This Is Hell" in a raw, energetic live format, the band's signature track "Suffer", seminal socio-political track "Flat Earth Society", introspective "Atheist Peace", the all-time fan-favorite "We're Only Gonna Die"...heck, I could keep going on and on.

The recording is pretty good - for the band, that is. The mixing has been left purposefully rough to make it clear that this is indeed a live album, but as anyone who's seen the band live before knows, the band sounds exactly like they do on record live every night. The crowd, however, leaves much to be desired for. Sure, you can hear big cheers after the band stops playing, but I find myself constantly looking for the sing alongs, but these are consistently drowned underneath the loud guitars, which is my main point of criticism regarding this album. And while the setlist is a wet dream for any hardcore Bad Religion fan, more casual fans may wish to steer clear of the record as it covers a bunch of lesser known songs like "Man With A Mission", "Resist Stance", "Won't Somebody" etc which are likely not aligned to the best-of hitlist you're expecting from a live album. But since you can get it for free, you really have no excuse.

Download: Fuck Armageddon This Is Hell, Flat Earth Society, We're Only Gonna Die
For the fans of: Bad Religion, punk rock in general
Listen: Myspace

Release date 18.05.2010
Epitaph Records / Self-Released

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