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X wowed their hometown crowd with an even more rocking set than the show I saw in Philadelphia back in December.
Essentially, the show was no different from the one a few months back, in that the setlist consisted entirely of songs from their landmark first four LPs (Los Angeles, Wild Gift, Under the Big Black Sun and More Fun in the New World), with the heaviest emphasis on the first two. The songs played were almost identical to the previous show, with the exception of axing “Poor Girl” to make room for “It’s Who You Know” (not a bad trade if you ask me, though I love both songs dearly).
The sound at the House of Blues was excellent, and after seeing them there I can understand why they chose to record their excellent, recently released live album Live in Los Angeles there.
However, despite the ferocity and excellence of their live shows, a lingering question remains. Is this just nostalgia and treading on the past (not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that), or will the reunited original lineup hit the recording studio again?
Remarkably, after a long wait (an understandable one since the members, especially EXENE CERVENKA and JOHN DOE, are involved in so many other projects), I’ve heard that there are plans in the works for recording a new album. If it in fact happens, then I’m really looking forward to it, as it would be their first studio album since 1993’s weak Hey Zeus and the first with the original lineup since 1985’s overproduced, but still great and very underrated Ain’t Love Grand.
The opening sets by the generic SoCal punk band THE JOHNS (I was hoping that X mainstay John Doe would be one of the members, but unfortunately, it was not to be) and former L7 singer/guitarist DONITA SPARKS (who unfortunately sacrificed the fiery intensity of her old band for generic bar-band rock) were disappointing. But fortunately we only had to endure a few songs by Sparks and her band, since we got there a bit late. And The Johns’ set was a mercifully short 20 minutes.
