Government Issue, the legendary DC hardcore band fronted by John Stabb, played a surprise show at the Ottobar recently. Pretty cool getting to see them play just blocks from my house, on a icy Sunday evening.
See all the GI @ the Ottobar photos here | Buy prints here, including several from this show
Shot the second of two sold out shows at the Black Cat to celebrate the impending release of Salad Days, a documentary about the 80s punk and hardcore scene in DC. Great show. I had seen GI before, so knew what to expect – always fun, though. But Scream I had never seen, and honestly, hadn’t listened to that much in a long time… so I was pleasantly surprised at how much they killed it. Seriously a great performance.
Read the Washington Post article about the show here, and look at all the photos here on my flickr.
Maff Moffat, co-owner of DC record store SMASH organized a benefit show for Stereofaith, a DC scene stalwart (former hardcore band member, longtime DJ and promoter, all-around cool dude) who had to have some pretty serious surgery. Seminal DC band Government Issue played a reunion show, along with the classic DC-suburbs punk band The Goons. It was a really fun show, sold out but not too crazy, probably because most of the people in attendance were a little older, so it was still fun to be in that room. The Goons set was rowdy, with some circle pitting and stagediving, but things kicked up alot when Government Issue took the stage. John Stabb is a crazy guy, I’d seen YouTubes but it was awesome to see him still getting wild, 30 years later. J Robbins, Tom Lyle, and Pete Moffett got pretty wild themselves… I saw Robbins and Moffett grinning and goofing with Stabb many times, Lyle seemed to remain more serious but was definitely playing hard. All in all, a good show…
View the whole set here | Read the BrightestYoungThings story