The first band to hit the stage was Rat City Ruckus. This four-piece band played straight up punk rock with a touch of sweetener as a chaser. At times they sounded similar to Blink 182 with their hooky tunes and sometimes more like the harder punk of NOFX. But they were enough their own band that I would in no way describe them as a copycat band.
Rat City Ruckus are also a young band. I doubt any of the members are over the age of 30. And they showed all the youthful exuberance one might expect from a young punk band.
The band did a great job of getting the audience ignited like dry timber and even added a wicked sax player for their finale, which added a lot of spice to their already frothing brew of punk.
Rat City Ruckus were wicked awesome!
Next up was Old Man Markley. Old Man Markley hails from the LA area, like NOFX, but the similarities end there. This is not a band you would expect to be sandwiched between other punk bands at a punk show. But I’m glad they were. Old Man Markley plays their own brand of hillbilly music, but pumped up with a lot of spice and punk attitude. They are a five-piece with an autoharp player (who switched to a melodic at the show’s end), a washboard player and a violinist. With the male/female harmonies and tons of on stage energy, these guys sang songs about drinking whisky and smoking weed, and had so much energy they played their set like a high speed steam train. They’re versatile musicians but know how to show an audience a good time.
For this band to wow an audience who came to slam to punk rock, says something of their skill. They were more fun than jumping in a bale of hay! I would definitely see them again. WOW!
The next band up, Poison Idea, was a band one would expect to be part of a punk rock show. Poison Idea, is another five-piece, fronted by Jerry A., someone with the sex appeal of a porcupine but the charisma of a Romeo. He sported a dark sweat coat and navy blue bandanna covering his entire head so it was impossible to tell if he even had hair. Poison Idea is the only band (besides the headliners, of course) that I had familiarity with. I’ve heard them played on local punk station KGRG. Like Rat City Ruckus, they also play straight up, no chaser, no sweetener, in your face, slam dunk punk. The minute Poison Idea churned out the first chords of their no-frills punk, the smoldering audience finally ignited into a roaring fire. Suddenly there were crowd surfers tumbling head over heels above the crowd. The stage divers became so numerous, security had a difficult time keeping up with them all.
Singer Jerry A. commented on how much he enjoyed watching all the antics of the crowd and mentioned a few times how much fun it was to play to an all-ages crowd. Usually their shows have been to the twenty-one and over c***suckers. Jerry even joked about one stage diver who landed on top of a girl and how he smelled a lawsuit potential. Jerry A. continued to crack jokes and taunt the audience throughout their entire hard core, no frills punk show and worked the crowd into a frothing frenzy. I almost expected to see Sid Vicious come out and spit blood into the crowd.
Poison Idea’s music is dirty, gritty and in need of a good bath. But I hope they never take that bath.
For the finale Jerry A. suddenly ignites his hands on fire or waved something around with flames (it was hard to tell). The flames were extinguished as quickly as they appeared and the band left the stage, having thoroughly warmed up this now rabid crowd. I commend them for a show well done.
After what seemed like eons, NOFX finally strolled casually onto the stage. Lead singer Fat Mike wore white shirt with horizontal wide red stripes, dark colored cut-offs and combat boots. The second the band hit the note of their first song, the audience went wild. It’s as if all the energy transferred into them from the preceding bands was simmering and just needed a single spark to ignite. Because ignite they did. I still have whiplash from being slammed into and crushed against the stage by the surge of the packed like sardines crowd. NOFX played many favorites, like Franco Un-American (with the original lyrics), Linoleum, and Don’t Call Me White, which the audience sang along on.
Fat Mike stopped and joked with the audience and at one point the entire band engaged in off-color mostly Mexican racist joke that were more funny than offensive due to the manner in which they were told (and we all know El Hefe is one hip Hispanic). I won’t repeat any of them in this review, however.
Many times it was difficult to decipher if the audience or the band was wilder People threw things onto the stage – mostly shoes. Fat Mike picked up a shoe that landed at his feet and demanded to know what punk rocker wore slip on shoes. When the culprit spoke up, Fat Mike berated him for wearing slip on shoes as oppose to combat boots.
Fat Mike continued joking with the audience throughout. At one point he noticed an older person in the audience, addressing him as “you with the white hair. We need more people like you in our audience. You look like Larry Tate. Anyone remember ‘Bewitched?’”
When someone handed Fat Mike a Baggie filled with pot, Mike couldn’t resist joking around again, making statements about how anyone could think they looked like a band that would smoke pot. He then mentioned they’d all been trying to get clean, but later on, he and guitarist El Hefe were handed a shot of whiskey by a stage hand, which they downed in one fell swoop. Although I did notice Mike wince afterward.
When the band returned for an encore, they returned with members of Old Man Markley and performed a moving anti-drug song they dedicated to Stephanie Sargent, the 7 Year Bitch guitarist who died of an overdose in 1982. Although NOFX’s performance was as fun as ever, I found it interesting how the last time I saw them at Warped was in 2004. Then they bragged about their exploits of doing drugs in the Vandals’ bus and would make disparaging remarks about women. Those behaviors were gone this time. They seemed more “mature.” Perhaps because Fat Mike is the father of a young daughter and probably because (as the song reflected) they had seen so many of their friends and colleagues die from drug overdoses. That really only leaves two options. Either you get clean or you go the same way as the aforementioned friends and colleagues.
For the absolute finale, they performed the NOFX Theme song, with Eric Melvin (complete with dreadlocks) playing accordion.
Buy me a Becks beer or pass me a bong
Gimmie some bushmills I’ll sing you this song
Open another big box of cheap wine
We’re over 30 we’re doing just fine.
Only now they’re over forty but still singing the songs as well as they always have. This was one fun show and although I swear I have whiplash nearly twenty four hours later, I consider it my badge of honor that I’m fifty three years old and still going into mosh pits. Anything for a good picture. I will see NOFX ten more times if the opportunity arises. They put on one of the best live acts of any band I’ve had the pleasure of seeing and I’ve been doing this for over forty years.
