Posted Aug. 20, 2004
Earlier this year, southern California punk veterans Face to Face announced their retirement. But before it was to become official, the band wanted to do one more cross-country trek. Their final tour stopped at the 9:30 club Aug. 17.
The tour lineup originally consisted of Face to Face, Operatic, My Chemical Romance and Say Anything, but the latter two dropped off of the tour for unannounced reasons. They were replaced on Tuesday by local pop-punk band Big Meanie, who played to a nearly empty venue early in the evening. As San Diego's Operatic took the stage the venue began to fill up. Operatic played a solid and energetic set that began to warm up the slowly growing crowd for Face to Face.
As Face To Face hit the stage around 9:30 p.m., the half-capacity crowd gave them a warm welcome. The band quickly jumped into a four-song cluster before addressing the crowd. When Face to Face singer Trever Keith explained that this was to be the band's very last show in D.C., he was booed by dismayed fans. Keith teasingly told the crowd that since he was getting too old and bassist Scott Shiflet (brother of Foo Fighters guitarist Chris Shiflet) was even older and worse for wear than him and really needed to retire. Keith suggested that the crowd have as much fun as possible before the night was over and that he had many great experiences playing in D.C.
Deeper into the band's set, Keith had the crowd yell for a straight minute to warm them up, warning that he was timing them. As the venue screamed he shook his head and jokingly muttered "terrible, just terrible" before launching into another round of the band's catchy punk songs.
In total, the band played around 30 songs, spanning numerous albums. The band ended ironically on the song "It's Not Over." Despite the band coming to an end, Face to Face gave the 9:30 club a great career-spanning show worthy of ending on.