Bad Religion always sort of struck me as a quintessential Los Angeles band, even before I moved to the city of Angels. I’d heard of them, and heard their music, certainly, but never seen them live prior to moving west. Now that I’ve been out here almost a decade — and having caught them once or twice, and met up with some of their more rabid fans — I feel that way even more strongly.

With its own inimitable blend of spiky melody, in-your-face attitude, thrashing aptitude and thought-provoking lyrical content, the band has been stunning the music world for almost three decades (!) now, after being formed in the comfy suburbs of the San Fernando Valley in 1980. Growing up in Reagan’s America fed Bad Religion’s anti-establismentarianism and religious and sociopolitical questioning, fueling songs like “You Are the Government,” “Damned to be Free,” “Land of Competition,” “Politics,” “How Much is Enough” and “Voice of God is Government.” In an era where almost every major label refused to consider American punk rock groups, Brett Gurewitz formed Epitaph Records — which remains an independent spirit today — as a medium for the band’s broader message.

Those aforementioned songs and more get a workout on this hour-long special edition disc, which spotlights the group’s December 29, 1990 El Portal Theater performance — notable for the hulabaloo it spawned in North Hollywood when shut down for being overcrowded and not having adequate seating for its floor crowd. The video quality is so-so, but the music comes through loud and clear. Highlights include “Doin’ Time,” “Yesterday,” “Drastic Action,” “21st Century Digital Boy” and show opener “We’re Only Gonna Die.”

The extra footage is what makes this disc worthwhile, at least from an anthropological point-of-view, since it includes bonus material from a February 1991 make-up gig. The so-called “riot” footage, which clocks in at 12 minutes, is fairly tame stuff. There’s a lot of yelling and what not, but a Rodney King-type document this ain’t. Don’t tell director Zach Merck, though; he sits for a feature-length director’s commentary which dashes past solemn reverence and into hearty ass-licking. He recounts all the spurious coincidences that led to him being there on the evening in question, and talks nicely about the other bands — like Black Flag, The Descendents and The Adolescents — that he discovered during the dog days of his misspent youth at a Glendale skate park. It wouldn’t be quite so bad, actually, if the whole thing wasn’t read if an affected monotone.

There’s also 11 minutes of random backstage footage leading up to a photo shoot; most of this is a dead lay, with the cameraman’s roving eye flitting from guitar tuning to floor to the crafts table. Yawn… Finally, there’s 15 minutes of skateboarding footage, too, which may certainly appeal to the demographic at which this title is pitched, but seems a rather haphazard inclusion to the untrained eye. Taken piecemeal, this stuff can be boring. Strangely, though, in aggregate it seems to more firmly root the music in specific time and place. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, for fans or newcomers. B- (Concert) B- (Disc)