RAGINPIT MAGAZINE

Jello Biafra used to be the singer of the Dead Kennedys way back in the eighties. The Dead Kennedys are one of the most important punk bands ever. Songs like "Nazi Punks Fuck Off!" and "MTV Get Off the Air" are still very actual, despite the fact that this band broke up in 1986. Jello Biafra went on with his career (he even was a candidate for president for the Green Party in the USA. Just imagine how the world would have been with him in the White House!) Together with the boys from Ministry, he recorded some good albums under the name Lard (and you will never go to the dentist again after having listened to the Lard song "Can God Fill Teeth.") While Jello Biafra was still active as a musician, we never expected to see him again on stage - until this year. With a new band, The Guantanamo School Of Medicine he went on tour again, including a visit to Amsterdam.

The Paradiso is one of the most important venues in the Netherlands. Not the biggest, but the most venerable. It is located in an old church which was squatted by hippies in 1969 and evolved from the center of the punk movement in the 1970's to the place where bands like Megadeth and The Rolling Stones would do exclusive shows. When I arrived at the venue there was only one tourbus (Megadeth needed two, one for Mr. Mustaine and one for his ego) and no barrier before the stage. So we could expect some kind of organized chaos like you can see on the video Live in San Francisco (1984).

Opener was the local band Otis. I had never heard from Otis before and did not know what to expect. It turned out to be an unholy alliance between Motörhead and a noisy hardcore band. We in Holland call this Speedrock, named after the band Peter Pan Speedrock from the south of the Netherlands.

Coincidence or not, but the singer and mascot of Peter Pan Speedrock, Dikke Dennis (that’s Fat Dennis in English) was also present. He has a tattoo shop in Amsterdam and can crawl back home in case he would be too drunk to fuck at the end of the show.

It was a good gig, but the audience was conserving their strength for the headliner.

Setlist:
Terror in Tiny town (Mr. Biafra was wearing a blood stained white doctor outfit, a bit like Dr. Frankenstein after a long amputation session)
Clean as a Thistle
New Feudalism
Electronic Plantation
California Uber Alles (with a cool Arnold Schwarzenegger imitation)
Panic Land
Lets lynch the Landlord (another Kennedy Classic)
Three Strikes
Strength thru Shopping
Dot Com Monte Carlo
Pets eat their Masters

It is always a risk to see your old time heroes in real life. Sometimes it goes well, like Kim Wilde or Suicidal Tendencies and sometimes you are in for a big disappointment (like with Paradise Lost last year). Jello Biafra used to be a crazy madman on stage, but that was 23 years ago. What would we see today? For starters, he is more than 50 years old and looks like that. Fat in the middle and thin in the higher regions, but from the first note he did run around like crazy onstage. Dressed in a white and bloody doctor outfit and rubber gloves (School of Medicine style) he reminded me of a punk version of Dr. Frankenstein. From the third song on, the fancy doctor outfit was replaced by an anti-Iraqi war t-shirt, but that is the fashion part.

Jello´s stage behavior reminded me of another artist I saw here last year, Henry Rollins, who did a spoken word gig on the very same stage. Henry and Jello have more or less the same background, both as singers of the Dead Kennedys and Black Flag and are more or less of the same age. Together they could give a nice imitation of those grumpy old men from the Muppet Show!

Most of the songs were from the Guantanamo album so nobody could accuse him from milking the old Kennedys, but he did not forget the old fans. We got "Too Drunk to Fuck," "Let’s Lynch the Landlord," and "Holiday in Cambodia."

Another strong point is that Jello does not take his status as superstar serious. Some fans at the front row (there were no barriers this night because Jello is not afraid of his fans like Dave Mustaine last year) were worshipping him as if he was the reincarnation of Buddha and Jesus combined. Mr. Biafra was clearly a bit embarrassed by this. On the other hand, he was still fit enough to avoid the flying plastic cups filled with beer. (And the beer is very expensive at the Paradiso.)

In good punk tradition it was more a dance pit than a kung fu imitation you might endure at a Walls of Jericho gig. Officially stage diving is prohibited at the Paradiso, but even Jello himself did a crowd surf session from stage to soundboard and back to the stage again. And we, citizens of the Netherlands did not drop him because we know about the sorry state of the social welfare in the United States. We had to avoid accidents at any cost!

This shows that Jello does not live in the past. As long as the world is still a cesspool Mr. Biafra will have enough to write about.

http://www.myspace.com/jellobiafraandthegsm