It was October 1991. I had just turned 20. I was a sophomore at UC Santa Cruz. Three of my best friends from high school were also attending UCSC. Brendan, Chris and Charger. I believe Brendan was in Spain at this point spending some time traveling and living abroad. Charger was at Porter College and Chris and I were living together at Kresge College in a building aptly named The Zoo.
That year we lucked out with our neighbors on the first floor of The Zoo. We became very good friends with the women in the apartment next to us. Renee, Crina, Heather, Chris Lee, and Nicole. Instant friends!
I had known Crina for pretty much less than a month, but for my birthday she bought me a ticket to go see Primus, Anthrax, and Public Enemy at the Henry J. Kaiser Center in Oakland! Holy crap holy crap holy crap!
My parents had moved back to Minnesota earlier that summer and they left me with their brown Plymouth minivan. That made me the designated driver to a lot of events out of town.
It was a late summer this year. The Eastern foothills were on fire. On October 20, we pack a possibly illegal number of people into the Plymouth and head north to Oakland!
The usual route was take HWY 17 over the Santa Cruz Mountains until it turns into 880 North and just keep a straight line until you get to Oakland. That basically means you drive right along the east side of the San Francisco Bay for about 50 miles.
So, since the hills to the east were on fire, they rerouted us onto 580 which naturally takes you closer to the hills that were on fire. It was late October, so it was already dark by the time we got to Hayward... aided by the copious amounts of smoke and ash in the air. As we're approaching Oakland, we witness a giant conflagration up in the foothills. A giant column of flame erupts from what I assume was a family losing their home. It was a tiny bit awesome in the literal sense.
I never took this route into Oakland. It was always 880. There was no GPS, so I had to rely on my learned understanding of the geography of the area and also read signs carefully, which was difficult because it was raining ash, super dark and shit was exploding in the foothills.
After the single most thrilling drive to Oakland I had ever had, we manage to park and start walking into the venue. It's not lost on us that a bunch of white college students from UCSC are going to see Public Enemy in Oakland while the hills are on fire and it's raining ash. It all seemed so fitting!
Earlier that month, Public Enemy released Apocalypse 91... The Empire Strikes Black. 911 Is A Joke was a huge hit and on everyone's lips at the time. I love Public Enemy. Chuck D is a hero of mine. That voice. That brain. He's a national treasure!
I had seen Primus a bunch of times at this point and anyone who knows me at all well knows they're one of my all-time favorite bands. I'd seen Anthrax a handful of times before this and again, one of my favorites at the time. I had never seen Public Enemy before. Soooooooo excited to see them.
A lineup like this is what I loved about the Bay Area music scene at the time. Funk bands played with metal bands. Hiphop artists played with punk bands. Crazy avant garde fusion bands sprinkled throughout. The clubs didn't just book matched genre bands for every show. It was glorious!
The lights dim. Primus walks on stage with Les' trademark "Hey hey hey!" and they launch into a condensed set with the greats from Suck On This, Frizzle Fry and Sailing the Seas of Cheese. Great set as usual. The thing I noticed though was that, since this was a fairly big ticket show, it wasn't just the usual club dwellers here. There were the Public Enemy fans. There were the Anthrax fans. These demographics did not usually cross paths. Then there were the rest of us... those there for all three bands. There wasn't any conflict among the groups, but you could feel a sense of confusion and a lot of people confused about their social identity.
Funk Thrash (yeah, I hate that term as well), metal, and rap all in one big rock show. It caused some people some identity anguish and it was a fun bit of schadenfreude!
Next up.... ANTHRAX! They had just released an EP earlier in the year where they did a version of Public Enemy's "Bring The Noise" with Public Enemy and it was glorious! Honestly, I became aware of Public Enemy four or five years earlier because Scott Ian was always wearing either a Public Enemy or Fishbone shirt when he performed. Thank you Scott for the recommendation!
They tear through a set of their greatest hits spanning from Fistful Of Metal through Persistence of Time. You could quite clearly see the cultural differences during this set. A certain set of people were moshing like Metal Thrashing Madpeople and another set of people were looking on like, "What the fuck are these people doing? That's crazy!" Then you'd see a young person from the latter crowd go, "Oh what the fuck! I'm going to see what this is all about!" and then dive into the pit. It was a fantastic melting pot. I'm thrilled with Anthrax's set as usual. Great performers. Great players. FUCKING METAL!
NOW! The moment I've really been waiting for. PUBLIC FUCKING ENEMY! Chuck D greets the audience before they begin their set. Oh my god! That voice! It bellowed through the auditorium with such commanding resonance. Holy shit! Then the music starts. Loud. Bass heavy. Dissonant. The contrast of Chuck D and Flavor Flav is very satisfying. The stage show is militant, angry, so fitting for a city with a history like Oakland's. I'm mesmerized.
I'd seen rap and hiphop bands before, but at clubs and they were local artists just coming up. This was an entirely different beast. So much power. I was inspired. I couldn't take my eyes off the stage. It was that good. I was exhausted after the set.
Then, at the very end, Anthrax walks out on stage. Oh shit oh shit oh shit! They're going to do Bring The Noise together. And they did! Sooooooooooo good! I was grinning ear to ear. As PE and Anthrax are bashing it out, Les and Ler walk out with banjos and start wandering the stage, staying respectfully out of the spotlight. Then I spot Tim with a giant bass drum strapped to his chest and he's beating the everloving shit out of it.
I'm overwhelmed by the sheer sonic assault of this combo coupled with the whimsy of Primus in the wings was amazing.
The 70 mile drive back to Santa Cruz was a quiet one. We were exhausted. The hills were still on fire. It was nice to get back to Santa Cruz and our respective beds after such an exhilarating and exhausting show.
I can't really say I've ever seen anything quite like this since.
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