Show review | Tours & shows | The Bad Religion Page - Since 1995
Quote of the day: "Tell me can the hateful chain be broken? Production and consumption define our hollow lives" - How Much Is Enough?
7/1/2009 - Las Cruces, NM
Best BR experience of my life
By: Neil Davis | 07/02/2009 at 02:18
This concert was a BR fans dream come true.

The day of the concert began with Jay telling me that he put me on the VIP list. That was so unexpected and awesome that my day was already made from that point forward.

When I got to the venue, the dude at the BR merch tent told me that the band went to go play golf. For that reason I didn't go backstage until shortly before NOFX started their set, and by that time the band was already walking around.

(Speaking of the merch booth, it has some pretty funny stuff. I might post some pics up later, but I don't want to spoil it in case they want to use that gag for on future warped tour dates)

My wife Emily and I briefly chatted with Jay. He said we could request one song. I suggested The Defense, Automatic Man, and News From the Front. Emily suggested Tiny Voices, In So Many Ways, Anxiety, and probably a couple others... I can't remember. I don't know if they ended up playing any song we requested, but things worked out much better than a fulfilled song request.

Our VIP passes allowed us to stand on the side of the stage and watch the band while they performed. Graffin soon herded us directly in the back center of the stage so we could get a better view.

Against the Grain was a surprise. Graffin said it was the first time they had played that song unrehearsed in 15 years.

Here's a video of that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR5m9mRi4YM

A couple songs before Let Them Eat War, Jay came over and asked Emily if she was willing to do the rap breakdown on that song. She agreed.

Here is the video of that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edAHViY8Zkc

That was the single coolest thing ever. Watching her nail that part was even more fun than the time that BR allowed me to ruin the vocals for God Song and The Defense during sound check back in Sept. '07.

All the band and roadies told her she did a great job, it was really fun.

After the show, we talked with the band one member at a time -- they seems to break up and go off in every which direction. Brian was probably off riding his miniature motorcycle. It's probably about 2 feet tall.

Anyway. Jay is seriously the coolest dude alive. Don't get me wrong, all the guys in the band are great, but Jay just knows how to make a fan's day.

Jay took my copies of Graffin's dissertation as well as his book "Is belief in God good, bad, or irrelevant?" into the tour bus to get signed, but Graffin came out and started chatting with us while he signed the books.

Fat Mike came over and somehow we started talking about Graffin's really rare unreleased music including "Tell me what you think". When Fat Mike heard about my BR audio collection, he said he was jealous and that he wanted me to email him some stuff. Greg seemed pretty surprised too and inquired as to how I came to possess all that material, and I told him I couldn't really remember... I've just randomly acquired it over the years. He told me to do him a favor and spready those rare tracks as freely and as widely as possibe. So here are the links for that: No Control 4-track demos and extra rare graffin tracks

After a while I asked Graffin what he thought of Emily's performance on Let them Eat War and this is how he responded:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2Ey2aOzG8Y

I'll post up more later if I remember anything else.
Edit Pictures
7/1/2009 - Las Cruces, NM - Emily aka 2hamsters1couple, chillin with the band 7/1/2009 - Las Cruces, NM - Graffin also signed my copy of his dissertation, t7/1/2009 - Las Cruces, NM - Graffin signed my copy of his book 7/1/2009 - Las Cruces, NM - Neil and Emily watching NOFX play just minutes bef7/1/2009 - Las Cruces, NM - Bad Religion is the bottom-left most placard: Main7/1/2009 - Las Cruces, NM - Emily VS Jay7/1/2009 - Las Cruces, NM - Unused ticket