Locking up the Post-Punk Vote

Taken by yours truly at the Mission of Burma show at Echoplex, September 25th, 2008. When a group breaks up and then reforms after a long period of time, you never know what you're gonna get. A lot of the time you get a bunch of much older guys trying to cash in on former glories. Sometimes, though, the group is made up of such fierce, singular talent that when they reform, it's almost as if they never left. Lucky for us, Boston's Mission of Burma falls into the latter category. As their name (not changed to Mission of Myanmar, obviously) would indicate, they've always embraced politics as a central theme, and as the picture indicates, they expressed their feelings about the upcoming election in no uncertain terms by decorating this amp and making damn sure that everyone could read it BEFORE they started their set.

Sadly, the message seemed to sail over the heads of some people in the audience. Rather than inspiring any kind of meaningful political discourse, the first thing shouted out to original Burma member Roger Miller was "Nice Pants!" Miller looked down at his pants, which were perfectly average, and gave the appropriate response:
"What the fuck are you talking about?" The band then proceeded to play their 1982 debut album "Vs" from front to back, and there was rock, and it was very very good.