Field Days

Continuing from my last post, this record was also acquired in a trade along with the burgundy vinyl ‘Flip Your Wig’ LP. And, along the same kinda theme, this record here also represents the second version of this particular record that I am now adding to my collection.

‘Field Day’ is the third Dag Nasty LP and I think it is fair to say that it is commonly regarded as their worst record. Even though it came out a year after ‘Wig Out At Denkos’ and two years after ‘Can I Say’ it somehow manages to sound more dated than both. Listening to this now, it does have a very 80s sound to it. Like, I can definitely imagine the kids hanging on the boardwalk in 'The Lost Boys' listening to this during the day.

This version I just picked up is the green vinyl pressing on Giant Records, which is the limited version of the US pressing. I have no idea how many were made but it doesn’t pop up as often these days as it used to. Then again, does anything?

To make things slightly confusing, this record was also pressed by We Bite Records in Germany for the European market and the more limited copies of that version were also pressed on green vinyl. Putting the two copies side by side, the two colours are quite different.

I usually feel that the European vinyl colours don’t look as nice, but this is an exception. The lighter shade of green looks a little nicer in my opinion, especially with a lightsource behind it.

I’d say that this is kinda similar to ‘Staring At The Sun’ by Uniform Choice in that probably a lot of fans of the previous record struggled with the newer sound when this came out. But if you have a little patience, there are definitely some great songs on here. It's not a bad record by any means, but it certainly isn't in the same ballpark as the two that came before it.