Unwritten Law

Unwritten Law @ The Palace

March 22, 2002

Photo from Unwrittenlaw.com

Lately, every day seems like a bad traffic day in Hollywood, but with all the street closures due to the Oscars it was even worse. There are pluses and minuses to not living in Hollywood. Pluses: you don’t have to deal with shit like the Oscars, The L.A. Marathon, Halloween, and the Hollywood Christmas parade. Minuses: Traffic sucks and you usually have to leave an hour early just to make it on time to a show. Unfortunately, leaving an hour early didn’t help tonight and despite all our efforts we missed Sugarcult and arrived while Mest was partying up on stage. The foursome from the Windy City cranked out a number of colorful, spiky power-punk tunes that had the every one in the venue bopping up and down on the floor.

As lively as Mest was, Bite Me! was here for one thing – Unwritten Law. I can’t believe it’s been about three / four years since I’ve seen these guys in action. I thought they were good the first time around but now the San Diego unit is even better. It’s pretty obvious that Unwritten Law has not been sitting on their asses these past couple of years. They’ve been perfecting and polishing their stage show.

As soon as Scott Russo (vocals) stepped out on stage the girls behind me screamed, “I love you Scott!” in unison. One of the fun things about being in the photo pit is catching all the comments made by groupies in training. It’s even funnier when they are in their mid-twenties and acting like thirteen-year-olds. Kinda makes you wonder what the little boys at a Britney Spears concert have to say.

As Scott jumped around the stage, his loose fitting pants kept getting lower and lower. I could just imagine what would happen then – I’d be trampled to death by the sex-crazed girls behind me as they scratched and clawed at each other in order to be the first one to reach him. At this point, I was happy to be booted out of the photo pit after the third song. I made my way back to my seat just as the band broke into the first chords of “Calin” and, of course, everyone was singing along.

The remainder of Unwritten Law’s dynamic set was split between their self-titled release and their latest, Elva (both on Interscope Records). “Seein’ Red” was another crowd pleaser but heavier tunes such as, “Teenage Suicide,” “Up All Night,” and “Underground” really rocked the house. The icing on the cake came when the vocalist of Mest (Tony Lovato) joined the boys on stage for a well-deserved tribute to the influential Fugazi.

Unwritten Law really put their heart and soul into their live show. Scott, Steve (guitar), Rob (guitar), Pat (bass), and Wade (drums), are truly into their music and they give up everything to make sure that their fans have as much fun as they do. Every minute of Unwritten Law’s exhilarating set was fueled by a fiery passion that had the crowd singing and bouncing along from start to finish. -NIN