I Saw Jawbreaker 30 Years Ago

June 9th, 1993.

I had been introduced to punk rock just a year earlier, and I was still nearing the end of my gradual transition away from grunge and into punk rock.

When a punk band played at our local venue (Rockafellas in Columbia, South Carolina), you went to see them, period. We didn’t get a lot of opportunities around this time, so we might see an industrial or goth band one week, then a punk band the next. I guess you could say that South Carolina was kind of like the Sahara for punk.

So it was with great enthusiasm that I looked forward to seeing a legit punk band, Jawbreaker, play a big show on this night filled with promise, electric with energy.

Thirty years ago, I saw this band play, and it was a seminal moment in my life.

How punk was I thirty years ago? Probably precisely somewhere between these two photos. If you’ve gone punk, you know this agonizingly awkward phase all too well:

I knew what to expect from the shows we had seen up to that point. After seeing local punk b…