On Thursday, punk rock trailblazers Black Flag brought the crowd at SA’s Paper Tiger back to band’s early days, delivering an onslaught of tracks from its The First Four Years compilation along with other punishing favorites.
Though founding member and guitarist Greg Ginn was the only one on stage who appeared on The First Four Years comp, the group’s more recent additions dutifully performed their roles.
Lead vocalist Mike Vallely, a professional skateboarder, has been with the band since 2013. The others members are even newer — drummer Charles Wiley joined in 2022 and bassist Austin Sears came onboard in 2023.
After an opening performance by The Queers, Black Flag took the stage at 8 p.m. for its early set, which supercharged the pit with songs including “Nervous Breakdown” and “Depression.” The first set was plagued by technical issues, though, which created long pauses between some songs and threatened to kill the mood. But after each pause, the band would come ripping back with another insolent and aggressive onslaught.
Because of Ginn’s status as band founder and punk elder statesman, he was given ample solos in every song. Some of those excursions went on for up to three minutes and verged on egregious noodling. Other times, however, they hit with the ferocity the hardcore band was known for in its early days. Mostly, the solos were deceptively controlled and created a deliberate mess, much like the aural equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting. Ginn knew exactly what he was doing, even if it felt like he constantly teetered on the precipice.
The band ended its first set with “Fucked Up” before taking a 20-minute intermission, during which punks young and old mingled and smoked cigarettes in Paper Tiger’s courtyard.
After that breather, Black Flag came back with a vengeance, delivering tracks including “Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie,” off its highly influential Damaged album.
The quartet ended the night with more material from Damaged, which was recorded with Henry Rollins as vocalist. Given that The First Four Years is a compilation of tracks from before Rollins joined the band, the later-period songs didn’t exactly fit the brief, but the crowd didn’t seem to mind.
Tracks from Damaged included “TV Party,” for which Vallely updated the lyrics “left with no TV” to “no WiFi” at one point. That banger was followed by the equally anthemic “Rise Above.” Then, it was back to The First Four Years with a cover of “Louie, Louie.”
The band closed out the night with another reprise of “Fucked Up,” bolstered by chants from the crowd.
