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I’ve had the Bad Brains on my mind lately. A few weeks ago I picked up a copy of Black Dots at Vinyl Conflict (I bought this on CD when it came out and never owned it on vinyl) so I’d been listening to that a bunch, and then the other night when I was scrolling YouTube I came across this live set from 1987:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-wgzqTKFiE
I don’t know what I expected, but as the band launches into the intro from the I Against I album and the camera lands on HR, stalking the stage and conducting the band with his arms, I saw this glimmer in HR’s eyes and I was just like “oh shit, this is about to pop off.” From there, they segue into “I,” and when HR starts to sing… holy shit, he is on fire.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched the footage of the Bad Brains playing at CBGB in 1982… it’s up there with Die Kreuzen’s public access footage as one of the most electrifying punk performances ever caught on video. But it’s such a different event than this Florida show. Not that it’s possible to overshadow the band’s incredible charisma, but the crowd is so into it at CBGB—losing their shit from the very first note—that they’re as much a part of the experience as the band in the video. You’re watching a great band and an audience who know their witnessing greatness and are acting accordingly, creating this feedback loop that propels the CBGB set to incomparable heights. The Florida set couldn’t be more different. The stage is huge; the sound isn’t that great; the setting is bizarre, and the crowd is mostly normies separated from the band by a gigantic barricade. The Bad Brains aren’t feeding off the audience here; they are their own power source.
I know some people consider I Against I the Bad Brains’ finest moment, but to be honest it’s never totally clicked with me. I remember a few months ago I was working the counter at the store while Jeff was in the back and I played a used copy we had in stock. The store was pretty quiet, so I played it loud and listened fairly closely. I hadn’t listened to I Against I in years, and I thought this might be my moment of epiphany, but no dice. A lot of my issue is with Ron St. Germain’s production, which sounds so dated to me… something about the guitar tone reminds me of a TV commercial… it’s just so slick and like corporate sounding. The irony there is that, aside from the Omega Sessions (which is thee greatest Bad Brains studio recording in my humble opinion), Ron St. Germain probably did a better job of capturing the Bad Brains on tape than any of the other producers they worked with. But still, watching this footage from Florida shows he didn’t even get close.
The version of “House of Suffering” on the Florida set in particular annihilates what they released on I Against I. The band’s energy level is a notch higher, and HR’s vocal performance is light years beyond what he does on the album. This live version has so much passion and character, and when you listen to the album version next to it, the vocals sound comparatively flat and lifeless. Beyond that, the song just clicks in a way the album version doesn’t, its main melody landing cleanly and directly like a perfectly placed body shot. The song never really stuck out to me on the album, but here it is a revelation.
After “House of Suffering,” they do a reggae medley of “Day Tripper” by the Beatles into “She’s a Rainbow” by the Rolling Stones (similar to what they do on The Youth Are Getting Restless live album recorded that same year). This should be totally cheesy, but somehow it’s not… I love the way Daryl starts the song playing the “Day Tripper” riff on the bass… I couldn’t place the melody until HR gets to the chorus. I imagine the Bad Brains must have developed this version for occasions just such as this, when they were playing for an audience full of spring breakers. I love the way HR gets lost in the song and improvises on the lyrics and melody. It feels like I’m watching genius at work.
Coincidentally, I started reading Finding Joseph I, Howie Abrams’ biography of HR, a few days ago (I’m about halfway through the book as I write). Abrams’ book charts HR’s ascent and descent better than anything else I’ve read or seen (including the Bad Brains documentary, which is very good), so I have a clearer sense of what version of HR I am watching in 1987. While people uniformly describe HR as smart, charismatic, and brilliant in his early years, signs of instability and darkness started showing in his behavior by 1982. By 1989, it seems like that first version of HR had all but disappeared. In 1987, though, you get a kind of peak. The band still has all of their musical chops, but they’ve been playing together for a full decade and have developed a level of flexibility that matches their power. That’s true of HR as well. The early performances can seem manic, bordering on out of control. The HR we see here is supremely controlled, but just as powerful. In 1982, he’s a machine gun spraying bullets, but in 1987 he’s able to wield the massive weapon that is his talent as if it were as compact and light as a pistol.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll stare at this video slack-jawed until the very last second, when HR’s perfectly timed backflip lands right on the closing beat of “At the Movies.” Fucking hell.