The Misfits Reunion

The Misfits broke up in 1983, a few years before I considered myself a punk rocker or really had an extensive knowledge of the the punk scene. I was just a kid, although I had an old Misfits tape I loved. Later I picked up some of their stuff on vinyl and got into them for quite a while, their catchy tunes and silly horror themes were a perfect amalgamation of my tastes in music and movies! When The Misfits reformed in the mid-1990's minus Glen Danzig on vocals I was pretty sure I would check them out live. Even though many of the punk reunion shows I had been to weren't so hot, I still was drawn to them part out of nostalgia and part to see if it would be a train wreck or not. November 4th, 1997 the "American Psycho" tour hit Seattle's Rckcndy. This was a smaller venue for a band as big as The Misfits, I figured it would probably be the best setting to catch them in. H20 and hardcore legends Sick of it All opened, neither were so hot by that point in their careers, although SOIA was fun to watch. Singing for The Misfits was Michael Graves, a young kid who actually did a decent job even if he was a bit of an idiot. He later became the spokesperson for the "conservative punk" movement with a website and became the victim in a hilarious segment on conservative punk on The Daily Show. The Misfits ended up being fun live. They put on a cartoonish punk show, did a ton of their classics and we all sung along, and when the show ended Jerry Only and Doyle hopped out into the audience and hung out shaking people's hands and thanking them for coming to the show (which seemed really weird, but also quite cool). I didn't see them on any of the subsequent tours as singers and band members kept changing, but for a moment I saw a glimpse of what the magic would have been like back when they were in their prime, which is really all you can ask for with a reunion show.