Monday 17 March 2025.

Saturday 15 March 2025. THE DESCENDENTS + CIRCLE JERKS live at Shepherds Bush Empire. Punk, pop, buzzing, summery, heartfelt, defiant, adolescent, and wise all at once, the Descendents sound never gets old. The band return with their long-awaited LP, Hypercaffium Spazzinate, delivering some of their sharpest songwriting yet. I saw them supporting NOFX at Brixton Academy last year , and headlining Shepherds Bush Empire in 2019. I first saw them twice, back in 1997. Descendents will be joined by fellow Californians, hardcore punk band, Circle Jerks. First band on will be Negative Approach. As part of a full UK and European Tour tour. ---------------- Level 3 is closed , but all other levels look full. A nice mixed crowd , as the older fans are here , and good to see so many youngsters , including plenty of females. A great atmosphere , as the dancing and moshing and crowd surfing got more lively as the evening went on. NEGATIVE APPROACH on stage at 7.25pm for their 30 mins. All three bands tonight had their equipment pushed to the front half of the stage . Negative Approach were a bit too hardcore for me , as the vocals were shouty growling that you couldn't make out, but good to see THURSTON MOORE join them for a song, and they also did a nifty cover of Sham 69 ' Borstal Breakout'. CIRCLE JERKS on stage at 8.25pm for their 60 mins. All the bands tonight as playing short fast songs of less than three minutes. Like Negative Approach, the band sounded good, but the hardcore growling vocals were not ideal for me. DESCENDENTS on stage at 9.45pm for their 75 mins. Amazingly they play 31 songs ( no cover versions) in just 75 mins. They whizzed through loads of catchy melodic singalong fast short punk tunes as the crowd moshed madly down the front. A nice Ramones type pop punk sound that was really good. Security were kept busy as must have easy over 100 crowd surfers over the barriers into the pit.The singer engaged with the crowd well and jumped in the crowd a couple of times.

Posted 16th March 2025