"I don't have to tell this audience that punk didn't start in the '90s," declared Social Distortion's singer/guitarist Mike Ness, whose 17-year-old outfit has logged more performance hours than fellow California bands Green Day and Offspring combined. "It's obvious you're bored with what's happening now," Ness told the crowd, "so we're going to bring back some of that danger, some of that heart, some of that fucking soul!"

It was a promise well-kept. Shoveling big decibels, the kind that cause seismic rumblings in an intimate venue like Tempe's Electric Ballroom, Social Distortion gave punk rock a much-needed kick in the pants. Faster and ruder than ever, the quartet -- which also includes founding member guitarist Dennis Danell, bassist John Maurer, and ex-D.O.A. drummer Chuck Biscuits -- delivered a high-octane set, whirling from the pile-driver punk chords of "Don't Drag Me Down" to the classics "Sick Boy" and "Bad Luck" -- all this sandwiched between the show's opener, a spirited cover of the Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb" (a hidden track on White Light) and three solid encores ending with a version of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire."

If the band's objective was to resurrect punk in its original, pure form, Ness's personal agenda involved hashing out an especially bumpy past marked by heroin addiction and time spent in jail. Though it's hard, no make that impossible, to imagine the singer getting gushy, Ness ripped out a handful of two-handkerchief ballads, fueling Social D's brand of rockabilly-influenced punk with some serious introspection.

The singer's snarly, two-pack-a day growl added much depth and feeling to "Dear Lover," on which he intoned the lyrics, "I can't take the pain no more/Dear lover I pick my heart up from the floor." It was clear the band's main songwriter had done some arduous soul-searching during a recent four-year hiatus.

Wearing loose-fitting black pants and a white muscle shirt revealing multiple tattoos, a quietly penitent Ness sang movingly about youthful ignorance in "Crown of Thorns": "I wish I knew then what I know now." This was no annoying confessional. If anything, the song showed that Ness has toughened up emotionally and has come to terms with a difficult past.

"I feel good," he announced to a packed house, spitting on the stage and flinging his shirt into the crowd. "It's