Should I really write a post about a show I saw over three weeks ago in a different state? Yeah, why not.

I was in San Francisco last month, and one of my favorites, Look Back and Laugh, were playing at Gilman on Sunday, August 26, so I hopped BART and headed to Berkeley. One of the openers was Government Warning, from Richmond, Virginia. I hadn’t heard of them, so before the show, I listened to a few MP3s on their MySpace page, and at first I thought it was a joke: Instead of putting up some of their own songs, did they post MP3s from the Circle Jerks or Adolescents or Reagan Youth or some other ’80s hardcore band? Or are they an actual ’80s band going back on the road? It turns out those are their songs and they’re young guys—younger-looking than me—who just happen to have that 20-year-old sound down pat.

My fella and I got to the show just after Government Warning took the stage. They played great—tight, straight-ahead, perfect ’80s hardcore—and were unstoppably energetic. They’re not like a reimagining of the sound; they simply are the sound. The kids went crazy for them, creating the biggest circle pit I’ve ever seen (which we later determined was because there wasn’t enough people in the crowd to keep it reined in). They played a short, sweet set. Then, out of nowhere, a young skinhead got knocked the fuck out with one punch to the face and bled all over the floor.

Aside from Government Warning’s set, the show on a whole wasn’t great; it was pretty tame (um, aside from that skinhead bleeding all over the place) and there weren’t a lot of people there. It was a Sunday night, after all, and I overheard some teenagers talking about having to go to school the next morning. Look Back and Laugh played after Government Warning, but their set suffered because of the small crowd and the resulting lack of energy. Which is too bad, because they’re great (and so is two of their member’s grind side project, California Love).

Government Warning have an uninformative MySpace page and that’s about it. I can’t really find out much else about this band, but they do have several records out, one of which, No Moderation, I have just ordered. And sorry, but they played Seattle on August 17 (and Portland with Tragedy on August 18), but I wasn’t paying attention at the time. Go listen to some of their MP3s. Now.