[Editor's note: Over the holiday season, SonicNet is looking back at 1999's top stories, chosen by our editors and writers. This story originally ran on Monday, March 1.]

BERKELEY, Calif. — Going on 20 years after the demise of their

influential punk band the Avengers, singer Penelope Houston and guitarist

Greg Ingraham were back onstage together Friday.

Only this time her hair was dyed blue, and his children, ages 8 and 12, were at

the side of the stage dancing and singing along.

The show, at the popular punk hangout 924 Gilman St., was the second of only

two planned by a revamped version of the group, going by the name the

ScAvengers. The shows celebrated the release last week of Died for Your

Sins, an album of previously unreleased Avengers material (and a

smattering of new recordings).

A lot of old punks came out of the woodwork to see them. Leather-clad

thirty- and fortysomethings appeared to edge out the teens and twentysomethings in

the barn-like hall, and old concert T-shirts displaying such names as Flipper, the

Dead Kennedys and the Sex Pistols were prevalent.

"This was perfect," James Scott, 35, of Alameda, said. "I used to live in San

Francisco back in 'the day,' and this was what we did on Friday nights. This was

how we had fun."

Scott was with his 11-year-old son, Ryan, who said, "They rocked!"

Along with the Dead Kennedys and Crime, the Avengers — who released only

one single in their initial incarnation — formed the original wave of San

Francisco punk. Their career, which included an opening slot at the Sex Pistols'

final show, was short but influential, ending in 1979. Houston went on to a

career as a solo singer/songwriter.

"I played here a while ago," she said at one point Friday. "I was doing my

quieter, sit-down kind of thing then. I have to admit, this is more fun."

After a poppy set by the Eyeliners, an all-female quartet from Albuquerque, N.M., and

a hardcore-punk set by the Bay Area's American Steel, the ScAvengers —

Houston, Ingraham, bassist Joel Reader (Mr. T Experience) and drummer

Danny Panic (Screeching Weasel, the Groovie Ghoulies) — took the stage amid

a barrage of camera flashes and cheering.

Houston smiled quickly, almost anxiously, at the crowd and her three

bandmates before launching into "We Are the One"

(RealAudio

excerpt), a song from the original Avengers single. Shouts of

approval came from all corners of the club as young-ish and old-ish alike

thrilled to the discovery that she not only still had it, she may have improved with

age.

Twenty years seem to have taught Houston a thing or two about sticking to her

vocal range. Harmonizing with the band, wailing angrily, or just growling along,

she sounded stronger and more focused than in her younger days. Her stage

presence was assured and joyful, whether she was bouncing in place or

leaning over the front of the stage.

Tearing through fast, anthemic punk-rock songs such as "Open Your Eyes," the

call-and-response crowd-pleaser "Teenage Rebel" and "I Want In" — one of

three songs the ScAvengers recorded for Died for Your Sins — the

ScAvengers somehow sounded as fresh and relevant as the Avengers did in

their day.

There were differences, of course. Ingraham's children, Danika, 12, and Miles,

8, were there at the side of the stage. There was a pit in front of the stage, but

everyone in the pit was smiling at the band. Camera flashes strobed throughout

the set, and each song was greeted with whoops and yells, the stage lights

illuminating rows of upturned faces screaming along to each word.

The ScAvengers played a couple of new ones ("Angel and the Jerk," "The End

of the World") and wound up the set with a spirited favorite, "I Believe in Me."

Dead Kennedys singer Jello Biafra, who had been watching from the wings,

finally edged onto the stage and hijacked Ingraham's mic.

With the crowd shouting along, arms in the air, the ScAvengers and Biafra

closed the show with a romping version of Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What

I Want)." The boys embraced each other, kissed Houston and filed off.

"When was the last time you felt young at Gilman?" the club's volunteer

coordinator, Mike Stand, laughed.

"This did have a different energy," bassist Reader said later, comparing the

"final" show with the "premier" show two nights earlier at San Francisco's Noise

Pop Festival.

"That show had the excitement of it being the first time we'd played live, and this

show had the thrill of getting to do it one more time, and knowing it would be the

last," Reader said. "That was ... over-21; it was for the San Francisco

grownups. This is Gilman. This is ... everybody."