‘Green Day’ then reminded me most of all of ‘Hüsker Dü’ … ‘Doctor & The Crippens’ were some sort of a punk ‘cabaret’, completely with fireworks and exploding cabbages! The guy who did the fire-spitting almost set the ceiling on fire and the fuel dripped on our heads…
Henk Loobuyck
‘Doctor and The Crippens’ had played a show at Netwerk, Aalst (90-02-03) but this wasn’t organised by Smurfpunx because we thought the promoter was too commercial. For some reason (I guess Bruno didn’t have the same scruples as me) they ended up at the V.V. a year later… The ‘Crippens’ members were Nick Palmer (‘Max Von Rheinheart’; vocals), Tom Myall (guitar), Wayne Elliot (bass) and Dave Ellesmere (‘Jesus van Go(u)gh’; ex ‘Discharge’; drums).
When I was in San Francisco in 1989, I met a lot of people (at Mordam recs, Blacklist mailorder, etc.) and also visited the Maximum Rock’n’Roll house. At that time Lawrence Livermore’s label Lookout recs was also up and coming… Of course I bought a relatively big amount of vinyl. Some was by this young, fresh-sounding band ‘Green Day’. I liked their uptempo melodic punk-rock style. So when Christy Colcord (Lookout Europe) – who, back then, was living in London – contacted me (I think we’d met when she was touring with ‘Inside Out’ earlier that year) to help find some gigs, I didn’t hesitate. (see Brob’s tours: 6th – ‘La Zone’, Liège * 7th – ‘Kalashnikov’, Terneuzen * 8th – ‘Vort’n Vis’, Ieper). Little did I know that they were soon to become ‘major’…
Mike Dirnt (Michael Ryan Pritchard; bass), Tré Cool (Frank Edwin Wright III; drums) and Billie Joe Armstrong acted really ‘cool’. They weren’t really communicative, to say the least. Were they having a ‘green day’? Or were they already expecting some fancy, commercial venue? Never saw any photos of that gig… The only trace of their passage seems to be the entry in the Vort’n Vis guestbook.
Brob
photo by Philippe Klur (published in Uprising Decay #4)
excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:
additions wellcome!…
Vort'n Vis in the 90s 