Pop and Jazz Reviews : Fear Snarls Back Into Action at the Palladium

When Fear began in the late ‘70s, it was something of an art band, packing its snarling two-minute songs with dissonance and difficult 7/8 grooves as a sign of its contempt for its punk-rock audience. Later, Fear, who played harder and faster than anyone, became hard-core heroes. Fear’s nasty audience-baiting became synonymous with a certain type of punk knuckleheadedness.

Friday night, at a Hollywood Palladium so hot and jammed that sometimes you could scarcely see the stage for the steam, a reunited Fear made its first appearance in six years, and out came the skinheads and the Mohicans, most of whom were probably in grammar school when Fear last played.

Frontman Lee Ving bellowed the songs like a beer-guzzler at a boxing match, not usually coming within spitting distance of the actual pitch he was aiming at but also not caring a fig; the band was tight and full. Ving would introduce songs with his patented 1-2-3-4 1-2-3-4 , priming the slam-dancers in the pit, and then go into five or so seconds of formless noise. And it was only after an endless set of new songs, which sounded kind of like the old ones only not as good, that Fear roared through its snide punk classics, including “Let’s Have a War.” Unlike many of the other punk-revival bands, Fear--which headlines the Anaconda tonight in Santa Barbara--may have been obnoxious Friday, but they were never pathetic.