Considered one of the forefathers of the Fat Wreck Chords label California’s Good Riddance decided to throw in the towel last spring after a successful career as a hardcore punk rock band. For over twenty years this solid act act toured the world relentlessly. The band may have decided to call it quits but in honor of their hometown fans they played their final show on May 27, 2007. It was only proper to record it so that the rest of the Good Riddance fans across the world could listen in to one of the greatest good-bye punk shows I have heard to date.
Good Riddance has a music style with good potions of hardcore and sing-a-long punk rock. This CD is full of choice tracks from the band’s discography that they decided to play live one last time. The raw recording was later mastered and released as Remain In Memory: The Final Show. It is a perfect farewell for any fan of Good Riddance and grasps the energy of the band playing to their fans in a warm way. It is almost depressing knowing such a high energy band decided to hang it up and move on.
The CD full of thirty one tracks starting off with “Heresy, Hypocrisy, and Revenge”. Just hearing the guitars open the song with the fans going completely over edge made me so jealous. I only could dream of attending this departing show. Lead vocalist Russ Rankin does not even seem to have aged while singing this track.
“More Depalma, Less Fellini” is a more recent song but sounds much harder with a nice sing-a-long feel to it begging the fans to join along. I can only imagine what the mosh pit was looking like. After this song Russ Rankin declares to the adoring fans “as you know this is pretty much it” and to “sing as loud as you can.”
“Out Of Mind” and “Darkest Days” were two tracks from the band’s last recording, My Republic. As much as I liked that release, it was nice to see the band dig into their older material. I really got a kick out of “A Credit To His Gender” as this was one of the first Good Riddance songs I had ever hear when I was young. Hearing it live by this veteran band made it all that more pleasing and judging by the fans response, I am not the only one who feels that way.
If the last song did not get me going, hearing “United Cigar” pretty much helped declare this album a classic to me. Any punk rock fan out there needs to hear this song if you have not already done so. This is the music that makes punk rock such a worthy genre.
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