OFF! – Red 7, Austin, Texas 16/10/11

We like to have this cute little fantasy of OFF!’s Keith Morris being a reformed man. Tired of the basement-punk routine, lightened up right along with his kicked drug addictions, and mellowing into a cheerful, optimistic elder statesman. It helps that he’s always wearing a No Age shirt.

This is not exactly the case – as good as that storybook saga feels, Morris is still very much a jerk. Tied-down dreadlocks, screwed-up scowls, a stage-demeanor that’s both hunchback and gargoyle – he crawled to the stage looking tired as hell. Tired of the road? Tired of kids like us? Who knows, Morris hasn’t been a happy camper for about three decades, and he’s more than happy to spit bile on people who started listening to his music at the turn of the millennium.

But you know what? Pissed-off, angry-at-the-world Morris is a hell of a lot better than loose, easygoing, proud-of-his-grandchildren Morris. His antagonism fits the entire spirit of OFF! – a band of graying champions perfectly content to pretend the ‘90s never happened. We eat up a shtick like Morris’ because, frankly, we enjoy the time travel. For a lot of the kids at Red 7, Black Flag and Circle Jerks represent the Socratic ideal of hardcore, from heaven itself – since we never got our own opportunity to detonate a flophouse, jumping around to OFF! is the next best thing. Borrowed nostalgia compartmentalized and sold to us for $10 a ticket and $15 a ballcap.

The seasoned know that the OFF! live show scarcely lasts more than an hour. Morris takes the same pauses every show for the same dissertations – dedicating ‘Jeffrey Lee Pierce’ to the song’s namesake, a personal companion as well as frontman to The Gun Club who died of a brain hemorrhage back in ’96, reinforcing that ‘Fuck People’ was about people who talk on their cell phones while driving, and introducing each of the band member’s with a laundry list of underground-lauded acts they’ve been a part of. It’s all charming, even when you see it twice in one day during SXSW, and Red 7 was the perfect place for such reminiscence – it’s practically the only meaningful punk club in Austin, names like ‘Hot Snakes’ hit with a little more heart.

But I digress, let’s talk about asshole Keith. Asshole Keith telling a stage diver he barely registered a 1/10, asshole Keith informing another crash-happy fan that they’re “perfectly capable of fucking up these songs on our own,” asshole Keith hypocritically applauding a profoundly drunk Honor Titus as he jumped from the amps into the pit, like he was patting him on the back for promoting a raucous ethos that he wouldn’t necessarily let his fans keep. This may have been vaguely irritating for the uninitiated, but it’s great to see an ornery Morris in action. It feels truer in a sense, closer to the legends – OFF! consistently make good on their ancient promises.

Hearing the same flippant, punchy set for the third time raises a few questions, most notably about new music. Like most silver-haired, borderline-supergroups, OFF! does not seem like a band to last, and even less like a band to get over a debut that almost seemed too good to be true. It is impossible to judge their character or songwriting abilities, but you get the feeling that OFF! might want to cut things off before they get too greedy. After all, Circle Jerks and Black Flag are just as famous as running their legacies as they are for their mythical heights. It’s hard to tell if OFF! are even having fun anymore, away from the studio and in a mired, constant tour. OFF! has had quite the peak for a 2011 hardcore outfit, let’s just hope they know their limits.