Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 8, 1995                   TAG: 9503080075
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

OFFSPRING WAS UPSTAGED BY MOSHERS AND SURFERS

The Offspring concert Monday night at Radford University's Dedmon Center was:

A) Infinitely less interesting than the crowd surfing.

B) Infinitely less interesting than the mosh pit, which was less interesting than the surfing.

C) Infinitely less interesting than dirt.

Before giving away the answer, we first offer a few definitions for those who didn't study.

Crowd surfing is the concert ritual in which people in the audience are raised up above the sardine-packed audience in front of the stage and passed around on the waves of the crowd's outstretched arms. It's reportedly a rush for those who participate.

The mosh pit is another concert ritual. It is not actually a pit, but rather a circle that forms in the center of the crowd where fans flail around and body slam each other. The mosh pit can be fun to watch, sort of like professional tag-team wrestling.

But moshing as spectacle - or spectator sport - doesn't compare with crowd surfing's high-wire drama. With moshing, the biggest question is whether any of the moshers will need stitches at night's end, whereas with crowd surfing, the bigger question is whether anybody will be dropped on his skull.

Then there is dirt, which needs no explanation. Dirt is dirt and not very interesting.

So, with that clear, we now turn to Monday's concert.

Offspring is a four-member alternative band from California that does feature an interesting lineup. The group's lead singer, Dexter Holland, was his high school's valedictorian and is now working on his Ph.D. in molecular biology. The bass player, Greg Kriesel, holds a college finance degree, and the drummer, Ron Welty, has an electronics degree. The guitar player is a guy named Noodles.

In concert, however, the foursome didn't show as much aptitude or goofiness.

They played mostly high-speed noise, with a drum beat added, that was supposed to pass for punk rock, but somehow lacked punk's urgency and rage. Maybe that's because they come from the college ranks, and not the disenfranchised. Plus, they have sold 4 million records.

Still, the group's battering, hour-plus show was enough to inspire a large contingent of the sold-out Dedmon Center audience of more than 3,200 to crowd surf and mosh. There was plenty of both.

At times, multiple mosh pits formed, and the crowd-surfing got so thick with surfers that there were often mid-air body collisions, even a few pile-ups. All-in-all, it was much more entertaining than what was happening on stage.

Which, of course, brings us back to our quiz and the correct answer, which was:

D) All of the above.

Because dirt, after all, has more musical qualities - at least when compared to Offspring.

Opening Monday night's show were two equally wretched noise bands, Quicksand and No Use For A Name.

No Use For A Name, also from California, ought to change its name to No Use To Go On. The band logged a 30-minute set of power pop punk in the Green Day mold that did little to distinguish it from hundreds of other groups.

Quicksand, from New York, was a more aggressive, more abrasive version of the same. Again, nothing new.