The Fest: An Experience

October 2013

A German man with two-foot long dreads hoisted into the air bangs on glass while a band churns out furious sound. Crowd surfing is common here, but we are not in front of the band with amplifiers turned towards us. We are behind them.

We are crowd surfing a man outside of a venue, on the sidewalk, two feet from a man with a table covered in environmentalist literature.

This is Fest 11.

***

The Fest

The Fest is a punk-rock festival organized by Tony Weinbender and No-Idea records and is located in downtown Gainesville hosting over 300 bands from around the world to play, listen and make friends every weekend of the Florida-Georgia game.

Football fans leave. Music come in.

For many, the Fest is a reunion in the punk rock community, from musicians to train-hoppers the many gather in skin tight jeans and black-spike-studded jackets for good friends and good times.

Purchasing the ticket back in May, I didn't know what quite to expect once I got into Gainesville for the Fest 11. I just knew it had a lot to do with PBR and punk music.  

***

Friday

Immediately after taking a group photo with my college newspaper I hopped in Jacksonville Florida, ready to attend my first festival. I was scared, nervous and excited.

I packed my bags the night before with some granola bars just in case.

The food rations my companions brought along consisted of a loaf of bread and nine slices of pizza stolen from the school Cafeteria. Apparently there is something about mischief that with that punk ethos and it was would be celebrated at every moment.

I only knew one of my companions to the festival through casual chit-chat around campus and lo-and-behold both of us were attending, so for convenience sake, the carpool was bonded. Let us call the driver, Frank.

Frank doesn’t like seat belts. He has a collection of strapless buckles that he plugs in like a pacifier to  to appease the siren moans of his Accords’ insistence of wearing one.

Almost saying “Quiet car, you won’t tell me what to do.”

Other than Frank was Javier, or Javomatic maybe Javtronic? I liked the idea of giving this guy a nickname.

Javier burnt his nipples with cigarette butts not more than a week before the journey. Because that's just the kind of guy he is.

Soon, we merry three were on our way to the Fest 11. Young, cocksure and bold we sped down the I -10 in a silver streak in the afternoon sun, blasting Operation Ivy along the way

Several restroom stops and two packs of cigarettes later, we finally made it into the vibrating epicenter of the punk universe.

Culture Shock.

Never, never had I seen so many tattoos, jean vests, stretched ears, spikey studs and….side-tails. If you consider the “alternative style” your thing, this convergence of crusties, punks, hipsters, and what felt like everything in between will make you feel ecstatic, bolted into the moment of realizing you were someplace special
We drive down mainstreet and gawk at the mohawks and technicolor hair.

I see a local tattoo parlor has a sale on getting the No-Idea "stress face" tattoo for fest-goers. This weekend lasts three days, but having a cartoon under your armpit,  that lasts forever.

We unfortunately missed the pool-party but we also got to skip out on a 3 hour line to get our wristbands. Javitronic didn’t have his driver’s license, but he did have his school Id, insurance card and a copy of his birth certificate.

He got the wristband.

The first venue we got to was this small left-wing anti-authoritarian library called Civic Media Center with a tiny stage and plenty of floor space for acoustic sets and solo projects. Next store was a co-op and a small art gallery.

Pictured: Erica Freas of RVIVR at Civic Media Center ( Photo courtesy of Campfire Island)

If the music is the beating heart of the Fest then volunteers are the blood. Volunteers can sign up ahead of time and attend free in exchange for 8-10 hour shifts of wrist banding, door-manning and stage managing.

Franco Fay, a lank and black canvas clad kid sat at the division of two clubs checking wristbands and drawing bold X’s on hands of punk-lovers who were under 21. A first time volunteer at the Fest, he feels the community atmosphere and reunion make the experience stand out,

“I used to live in a punk squat with 9 roommates, when I moved out I never thought I’d see them again but at the pool party they were all together so it was really great.” Fay said.

The spirit of reunion resonated everywhere at every show, people were meeting old friends as fast as they seemed to be making them.

Although  frightening at first, I soon found comfort in the community around me.

***

The Parking Garage

Instead of booking a hotel like any decent people would, the first night was spent sleeping in an Accord at the top of a parking garage.

This would become our home base. We had a cooler filled with cheap beer, and we had tunes. We traded stories of past festivals and ran into a guy in a Bad Brains T-shirt. He said has booked a hotel for himself and bought a bottle of champagne “for the ladies”.

We didn’t need a hotel. We didn’t need any champagne. All we needed was a trashcan to fill with piss.

Frank stole a fire extinguisher and doused Javier in a chemical blanket of white fog. It even got in his drink.

Putting the extinguisher into the back of his car we folded back seats and wrapped ourselves in blankets. Lulled to sleep at the top of a parking-garage in Gainesville we had another two days ahead.

***

Saturday

After awakening in our seats in the silver accord went out to plan our schedule of shows to see and drink coffee.

We agreed on some but had to go solo on others.

Waiting for Bloomington Indiana's High-Dive to play I encountered the member of a certain band I was chomping at the bit to see on Sunday.

Sean Bonnette, the singer of Andrew Jackson Jihad (AJJ), a Folk-Punk band out of Pheonix AZ, has played at the Fest 4 times now, though he has only played in Jacksonville once he still enjoyed the experience.

A big theme listeners of his music hear are about cigarettes, cancer and death and he says it is not ironic

Pictured: Sean Bonnette ( Fucc The Devil video)

“It’s more of a real thing” he said.

“My attitude is one of ambivalence; because I’m addicted, but at the same time my great-grandfather really did die of lung cancer, and cancer runs in the family and it’s this huge problem and somehow I ended up addicted to them so now they are unfortunately part of my life”

On a lighter note he said that the Fest had been wonderful, and he ran into a bunch of friends he hadn’t  seen in a long time.

“That’s what it’s all about” Bonnette said. After thanking him he left to catch up with Jeff Rosenstock of Bomb The Music Industry! to catch up on old times.

Javimatic had not had the same fortune.

Javioso had some trouble getting into the clubs. Something do to the fact that clubs don’t except insurance cards as valid I.D’s. luckily for him a friend showed up with an I.D that looked almost, sort of, similar to him.

I arrived at the Direct-Hit! show alone and disappointed to see a line barely moving out the back. Defeated, on my way back to another concert I saw what gave me a grin.

A dozen people bobbing heads and pumping fists to the music just outside of the venue.

The venue looked like absolute mayhem on the inside, crowd surfing, beers flying, even a fight between a guy in a Satan against another guy in a Satan consume.

We could not be outdone, so while the band blasted tunes we hoisted a six-foot German man over our heads.

(Photo courtesy of Caulfield Rebellion @CR_PUNX)

Heaved above us he knocked on the glass to the fans inside, and at the same time a crowd surfer was brought to the other side.

Separated by glass, they were joined with sound.

***

Sunday

The first big show I tried to make it on Sunday was Hop Along, a band out Philadelphia, PA that has been bounding around the underground scene.

The line went out, back, and around the block. The club was still filling in after sound check. We only got to hear two songs.

The band sounded like a cup of blended hot-coco with an added shot of scotch. Smooth and creamy but with an emotional bite, an undertone that sat deep within the bands heavier song and bright in their more folksy tunes.

Frances Quinlan, singer and songwriter for Hop Along was The Fest for her first time.

“It’s like a crazy punk reunion”  she said.

Pictured: Francis Quinlan ( Photo courtesy of Cristina Camilla Photography)

Quinlan has been playing music for 19 years and has been playing in Hop Along with her brother on drums for three years.

"I guess I'm really emotive in my singing, so when I write the lyrics, and they're important, I want them to sound a certain way"

From this I bounced across the street so see a special band for me.

Bomb the Music Industry! put on a show that tore up the crowd like a paint shaker filled with rocks and bits of broken glass. This was (supposedly) their last show at the Fest. The first and last time I got to hear the tracks off of their final album "Vacation".

I spent the last show of the festival seeing David Liebe Hart play his insane puppet fueled punk-country-schizoid performance. There were several kids in horse and unicorn masks.

Hart used two microphones. There could have been a practical reason for this.

***

Going Home

So the festival was over, 3 days of insanity and comfort-zone escape.

Driving back to Jacksonville, land of jaguars, football, and "normal life" we listened to RX bandits before getting back to campus by 2 am.

The shower was godly, the sleep was wonderful and when I woke up.

there was something wild, something borne into me after that weekend.

I think I'm going to go kick over that trashcan.