On Thursday, March 15, a certain aging, gruff voiced rocker with a penchant for denim vests treated a crowd of diehard fans to some of his best known songs. No, no, not that guy from Jersey, though I hear he did alright for himself that night as well. No, I’m talking about Lee Ving, frontman for early ’80s punk legends FEAR. While they aren’t quite at the level that Bruce is, as I said there were quite a few fans there eager to hear old chestnuts like “Let’s Have A War” and “I Don’t Care About You.” And truth be told, they did sound pretty good. Well, to me anyways. Apparently the band couldn’t really hear much at all onstage, leading to Ving angrily berating the sound man and telling him since 2 of the monitors don’t work, he needs to turn the other two “way the fuck up.” Look, Lee, I get that you’re all punk and stuff. You’ve got a certain image to portray, and I get that you’re angry. But unless the sound guy was being a dick to you, maybe you need to chill out a bit. Maybe he was a dick though, so it’s really not my place to say.
Speaking of attitudes though, guitarist Dave Stark seemed kind of moody and annoyed throughout their set. Maybe it was the number of cameras in the crowd, which frankly, could be pretty annoying. Maybe he really didn’t want to be playing SXSW in general. Maybe the show just started too late and he wanted to go to sleep.