“Ok, we’re entering
the hostel, we gotta keep it down.” Six
pair of feet shuffle up the steps.
Plastic cups of beer – one for the roaders – in hand. A patient night receptionist sits at the
desk. Just prior to this we were
standing in a parking lot seeing who could walk in a straight line better, the
drunk or the sober. You can guess the result, but it’s not as easy a task as
you would think. Ryan tried a step or
two, then abruptly pointed skyward and shouted, “look it’s Orion’s Belt!” He
then moshed towards us. Bladder control
had to be exercised as we laughed out loud.
Five minutes later we are tip-toeing into the lobby. A plastic cup drops (of course) and beer goes
everywhere. The receptionist gets a
mop. It’s 3:00 am.
Heading down the highway now in Italy. We exited the land of high mountains and
glacial lakes and are now marveling at road signage for Venice. Fuckin’ rad.
I’m struggling slightly to put words together – partly due to lack of
sleep, partly due to the three coffee’s I’ve had this morning, partly due to
all the shit that happened the day before.
Night Birds now have a Punk Rock Holiday under their belt.
Imagine 360 degrees of beautiful (I mean, beautiful)
tree-covered mountains. Snowcaps peak
over their shoulders as if to photo bomb the scene. A milky blue river flows through the
valley. A winding trail curves down to a
mulch-covered field enclosed by canopy of emerald green. 3,000 druuuuunk puuuuunks await.
Night Birds already early set time gets bumped up. Not strangers to adapting and reacting, they
are ready to go…if only the guy from MySpace Invaders could let them wrap up their paperwork at the
production office. We run the merch over
to the tent where a contracted company sells the shit for us. My job is somewhat done for the day. I crouch stage-side with my camera. The stage is huge; PJ looks like he is on the
other side of the river. Like I need a
telescope, not a zoom lens to get him in focus.
Night Birds hit it. At the far
end of a developing sea of revelers sits a pair of giant inflatable Monster
Energy cans. One dude does a hand-stand
to forward flip into the crowd. Another
kid jumps on to the low platform between the stage proper and the audience,
writhes and contorts wildly for a few seconds, and rolls back in. PJ breaks the
intensity for a moment by licking Brian’s face like two scoops of rocky road. The
fastest band of the day wraps their set with The Replacements. “Turn that shit off!”
Happy to see members of Bane checking out the NBs and then
giving a shout-out during their set. So
cool when two bands from different stripes of HC can cross paths at something
as stylistically sprawled as a mountainside punk fest and express mutual
admiration. I must say, I also felt
nothing but posi vibes watching their set of classic old-school-inspired ragers. “Do you still believe?” I fucking do!
The Night Birds set behind us and the merch out of our hands
meant a rare free evening. I spent the
lion’s share of my time soaking up some wifi and making my best attempts at a
disjointed Facebook chat with my wife.
There is a guy at the fest with a shirt that proudly declares, “Fuck
Facebook – I’ve got real friends.” You
know, not to be an ironic dick, but that statement might actually convey the
opposite meaning.
Punk rock haircuts abound.
I mean that sincerely, as there is a punk rock barber shop pop-up at the
fest. PJ and I are hanging in the beer
tent. An Italian guy in a Brazil jersey
wants to talk to us. PJ asks him which
band he is here to see. No band. Just here to drink. I have a Punk Rock Holiday debit card for
boozin’. I use it to buy a Slovenian burrito.
Slov-Mex. Approaching midnight, I
go for some Mr. Coffee sitting idle since dinner. Willkie from the NOFX crew passes on some
secret information. There’s good coffee
and vegan food down by the river. I work
my way down there for some ice cream cake.
I’m walking on a dark path in the middle of the night in the mountains
of Slovenia about to watch one of the first punk bands I truly loved play. I haven’t seen them for 20 years. Not since the Punk in Drublic tour stop at
Atlanta’s Somber Reptile.
I’ve got a smoothie in hand.
Michl, Ryan, and PJ are double-fisting beer as we slink on to stage
right. Joe and Brian are already
there. NOFX explode. The crowd goes goddamn nuts. Security is mostly forgiving and so is the
band as audience members hop on stage and one-by-one employ various tactics to
get the NOFXers attention. There’s the
arms spread wide in front of band member “look at me!” pose. There’s the steal a sip of Fat Mike’s drink
move. There’s the “dude look at my sick
NOFX tat” move. Finally, there’s the
gift-giving move – a flask, a demo, a business card, underwear, whatever. Most stage-divers don’t attack the move with
the required abandon. Rightly considering their safety, they tend to ease into
the crowd like an elderly man crawling into bed for the night. My arm is in the air singing along to songs
from high school that still hold up.
“That’s me inside your heeeeeeaaaad!”
An extended security/stage-diver scuffle results in the loss
of the diver's shirt, a tackle over the monitors and, for his troubles, the subsequent
raising of his person off the ground by two hands clasping his head and lifting
with vigor. He is exited thus so. Song ends.
Boos and tree bark alike are hurled.
Boner killer. Fat Mike expertly
steps up, apologizes, takes responsibility, and the show goes on. Although that awkward moment occurred in full
view of the entire crowd, center-stage, they are able to recapture the vibe
with some killer closers like Separation of Church and Skate, and Kill All the
White Man.
NOFX is as important to me as Kiss, Anthrax, The Misfits,
Ramones, Minor Threat, 7 Seconds or Tear It Up.
They are part of a musical tether ball that swings around
cyclically. Sometimes I’m there to hit
it back around, sometimes it just smacks me in the face. When I was a jerk teenager, my friend and I
listened to “Ribbed” over and fucking over.
Yugoslavia was a country, not Slovenia.
It would have been nonsensical at the time to suggest that last night
would eventually happen. But it did.
Last night was a ton of fun in Bolonga, Italy! Tonight is Switzerland! See you there!
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