Rancid & H2O @ BB Kings 8/24

Last night was the first of four Rancid shows in NYC at BB Kings. Of the four this was the one I really wanted to check out because NY legends H2O were opening. The first act to play was FVK - since I never heard of them I decided to show up late. Big fucking mistake. First of all FVK is Fearless Vampire Killers, the Cro-Mags side project. I know and like Fearless Vampire Killers but I never saw initials used. Damn it, so I missed FVK completely. I also managed to miss 1/3 of H2O's set.

So showing up late was a huge fucking mistake. The few songs I did catch from H2O were sick. On the last track the guitar player for Madball came out and joined in. After that we pushed our way through the crowd and got a spot up front. Some half crazy gutter punk was starting odd conversations with everyone around. It was fairly amusing until his buddy started spraying beer all over the place.

After about half an hour Rancid finally took the stage. They opened with "Ruby Soho" and the place went nuts. The one 400 pound lard ass in the place was, of course, right next to me. After three songs of him leaning on me I went to the side for some relief. I should say right now that Rancid was always cool in my book but I had never seen them live until last night. Through out the set I was getting frustrated because I kinda knew every song but not enough to ssing along.

I'm not sure how long they played but after a while they left the stage. Then came the obligatory encore which consisted of 3-4 songs. The first two songs were done acoustically and were killer. Everyone in the place was singing along. Check out the video below - it sucks but the sound is good. After the two acoustic songs they strapped the electric guitars and finished with some punk rock.

The highlights were hearing H2O play "Family Tree" and "Guilty By Association" and Rancid play "Ruby Soho" and "Time Bomb" but I would have liked to hear "Whole Lot Of Nothing" and "Salvation". They also played an Op Ivy tune, but I was never into the whole Op Ivy thing. So anyway it was great to see Rancid and I highly recommend you go to one of the remaining shows.

**Update: Hardcore Shutter Bug has killer pics