Violent Femmes Take the Crowd on a Folk-Punk Journey at Irving Concert

It only took four notes for the crowd to ignite into a song about drug use, possibly masturbation on Saturday night at the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory.

The song became a cult classic in the ’80s via shared mix-cassette tapes, and gained mainstream popularity in the '90s via alternative rock radio and John Cusack's hitman movie Grosse Point Blank. It's a song everyone knows, though not the band who sings it. It could be heard at sporting events and even a Wendy's commercial, a move that would lead to a lawsuit over royalties between Violent Femmes’ founding members bassist Brian Ritchie and guitarist/vocalist Gordan Gano in 2007. They eventually settled the lawsuit.

Gano didn’t know the opening riff he recorded for “Blister in the Sun” in the early ’80s would still inspire a singalong from fans more than four decades later. He was a teenager when he wrote and recorded the lyrics for his Milwaukee band’s 1983 self-titled debut album. In a recent interview, he told Wall of Sound that he felt it was something special, “but at that time it was only myself and the band that felt that way.” A packed amphitheater in Irving on Saturday night felt the same way. For nearly two hours, the Violent Femmes took a crowd of all ages on a folk-punk journey through their first two albums, beginning with 1984's Hallowed Ground, followed by their better-known self-titled debut album after a brief intermission.

Gano and Ritchie were joined by Blaise Garza on saxophone and drummer John Sparrow, who played a solo on a barbecue grill, a performance he unleashed a few days earlier on the Milwaukee Bucks' basketball court.

“Texans, they do make good barbecue,” Ritchie said. “They do make good barbecue, but they can’t play a drum solo on a barbecue!”

He called it the second most amazing thing Sparrow had done on Saturday and told a story about Sparrow pulling his own tooth out earlier that morning due to a toothache. The crowd cheered the punk-rock move, especially since he didn’t have anesthesia or novocaine.

The third most amazing thing was that Gano, who, like Ritchie is in his early 60s, still sounded like he did on Dallas’ 94.5 KDGE “The Edge” in the ’90s and performed with that same folk- punk energy more than 40 years later. Gano wrote songs for both albums in high school. In 1980, he joined Violent Femmes, then a duo consisting of Ritchie and former drummer Victor DeLorenzo. They perfected their craft busking on the streets and playing in coffee houses until they were discovered by The Pretenders guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, who heard them busking outside Milwaukee’s Oriental Theater and invited them inside to open for his band.

The late The New York Times music critic Robert Palmer compared Gano to Bob Dylan and Lou Reed in a 1982 rave review of the band's live performance.

The Violent Femmes were “alt-rock” before it became cool in the ’90s. Called “one of the most important rock bands of the 1980s, if not the past quarter-century.” Their legacy has influenced bands such as the Pixies, The Smiths and Nirvana, who opened for the band in 1992 at Fisherman’s Wharf in Sydney, Australia.

They were busking on stage Saturday night. Fans were dancing in the pit instead of moshing. The first half of the show was a religious-themed instrumental fiasco with saxophones and trumpets and Sparrow’s drum solo on a barbecue grill.

A son of a Baptist preacher, Gano sang songs inspired by his faith as a kid. “I Hear the Rain,” “Jesus Walking on Water,” and “Hallowed Ground” caused this metalhead to nearly burst into flames in the pit.

“Country Death Song” is the first song on the band’s sophomore album and a horror story about a father who earns a ticket to hell after taking his daughter to explore the mountains and pushing her into a bottomless pit. We had a similar thought about the person who decided to charge people $35 to park in the parking garage next to the Toyota Music Factory.

Dancing and cheering erupted in the pit on Saturday night after each song from 1984’s “Hallowed Ground.” Those cheers turned deafening when the Violent Femmes returned to the stage after a brief intermission and played the opening riff to “Blister in the Sun.”

Every song that followed from the band’s 1983 self-titled debut album had the crowd singing along with Gano, who encouraged it at one point in “Blister in the Sun.”

“Kiss Off,” “Please Don’t Go,” “Add It Up” and “Gone Daddy Gone,” saw young people in the pit — who didn’t even exist in the band’s underground mixtape heyday — who knew every word, embracing the band’s energy and proving that the Violent Femmes is a band out of time.