Rancid; MxPx

This tour pairing is either disheartening or inspiring, depending on where you're sitting: two third-wave vet-punk gangs straggling on long after their scene was finished with 'em. Mohawk-celebrating, politically aware Rancid arose in the early 1990s from the ashes of ska legends Operation Ivy and promptly became The Most Popular Epitaph Band That Wasn't the Offspring on the strength of crustily propulsive, gang-shouted singles like "Ruby Soho" and "Time Bomb." Meanwhile, pop-punkers MXPX—who a college pal once haughtily dismissed as "Christian punk"—bled emo before Hot Topic had a chance to colonize our great nation's indoor malls. Why either band still exists at this point is anyone's guess: nu-metal sunk Rancid's ship after ...And Out Came the Wolves blew up, and A&R suits have spent, like, a decade trying to figure out how to make MXPX quasi-famous with no success. Yet both Manic-Panic dinosaurs stagger on in a world where fake designer sunglasses are the new chain wallets and Good Charlotte figureheads are dating Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie. All ages.
Mon., July 28, 7 p.m., 2008