Germs in NYC Live, Actor From E.R. on Vocals! Don't Have a Cow!
It's just about 25 years to the day since they last played, as well as the anniversary week of Darby Crash's OD, but lo and behold, news hit last week that LA's legendary Germs were reuniting for two sets at Continental on December 10th (with appropriate openers the Magik Markers, whom we've extolled about in the past). Almost everyone I mentioned this to bristled in horror when it was revealed that joining Lorna Doom, Don Bolles and Pat Smear would be actor Shane West, of ER TV show fame, and also the guy who happens to be playing Darby in the forthcoming Germs biopic What We Do Is Secret. West, who looks like a young, even more All-American version of Tim Robbins, had his hands full to be sure, I mean, considering Darby was a speed-times-heroin-times-alcohol-drenched trainwreck on stage, barely coherent through the band's chaotic assault, and, needless to say, an extremely huge reason the Germs were the Germs. Live, West threw himself into the role and had a fairly good invocation of Darby, though a somewhat straight Darby. Smear's guitar (which had been keeping busy in the 90's with Nirvana and Foo Fighters) sounded awesome, slicing, buzzing and riffing his way through a big chunk of the Germs' catalog, Bolles pounded away on twin kick in his SS hat and platform shoes, and Lorna (who, by the way, was SO incredibly nice when I met her!) held down the steady, yet weird and woozy basslines that were a huge trademark of their songs. Throughout, Smear, Bolles and Doom were smiling incessantly like lunatics; this was the first time they had played as the Germs in New York, and they couldn't have looked happier.
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