GAINSVILLE, FLORIDA | OCTOBER 26-28, 2007

FOR THE 6TH YEAR IN A ROW, PUNK ROCK FOLKS FROM ALL ACROSS THE LAND CONVERGED ON THE COLLEGE TOWN OF GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA TO DRINK COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF $1.50 PABST BLUE RIBBON DRAFTS AND SEE 180+ BANDS PLAY VARIOUS VENUES OVER 3 DAYS. I’M ACTUALLY SURPRISED I REMEMBER ANY OF IT. I WAS GLORIOUSLY HAMMERED.

My goal was to drink 100 beers and see 100 bands. I set the bar pretty high, I know. In the end, I think it was more like 60 beers and 20-30 bands; tough to see more bands than that because so many of ‘em are playing at the same time at different places. I did see some good ones: Army of Ponch, Tiltwheel, Vena Cava, Dan Padilla, Vaginasore Jr., Blood Bath & Beyond, Triclops, Hot New Mexicans, kickass banjo-playin’ white blues man Josh Small, Savage Brewtality, The Lawrence Arms, and many more. Unfortunate scheduling conflicts caused me to miss The Draft, Small Brown Bike, Smoke Of Fire, Planes Mistaken For Stars… the list goes on and on. The highlights for me, though, were seeing Baroness for the first time (so good!), and Richmond, VA’s Avail and Municipal Waste each had my shirt so soaked with sweat that I had to go to the house party afterwards like a bare-chested savage. (Two days later when I was re-packing, I decided to give that rancid article of clothing a quick sniff, and it smelled like a dirty dishtowel that had been shoved into the rectum of a dead hobo left to rot in a cow pasture.)

Avail was indeed the jam of the Fest if you ask me, and I think Kriegel will agree. Those dudes tear it up! They played damn near every song I wanted to hear. Early into the set, Avail cheerleader Beau Beau got up on top of the big-ass speakers and let us know he was gonna jump. He looked scared as shit, as he had to be 15 feet above our heads. We called him forth, though, and he answered with a mighty front flip, landing on the outstretched hands of the dense throng of fans below. It was certainly the ballsiest stage dive I had ever witnessed. Hell, I was so caught up in the spirit of things, I even managed to get in a super-weak stage dive of my own – my first since… my hardcore show days of 1990?

Later that night was Municipal Waste. Kriegel was so drunk that he had to get out of the venue for some air or somesuch, and I was pretty sure he was going to go pass out in an alley and choke on his own vomit, but I’ll be damned if I was gonna miss the Waste. Since it was a couple days before Halloween, the band took to the stage in costume. The drummer was Animal from the Muppets, with an actual giant muppet-headed furry costume. He had to be sweating balls, and I have no idea how he saw through that thing. He still managed to lay down the thrash beats and it was killer. The singer was dressed in a pink-and-rainbow Klansman outfit, Satan was on guitar, and they had a roadie dressed as a wizard. The wizard had a massive, monstrous-looking beer bong, and I was thirsty. I got up on stage and must have drank 2 beers worth of mystery brew in like 3 seconds. I threw my arms up in drunken victory, and then the wizard calmly pushed me backwards so I fell off the stage on top of the crowd behind me. If I live to be 100, I think the beer bong from the thrash metal wizard will always be on my “Top Ten Greatest Memories Involving Alcohol” list.

Then I damn near broke my ankle in the circle pit, because I’m in my thirties and have no business being in one. The wall of death was a bad idea, too.
Then I drank a shot of whiskey and had to throw up in a trashcan in front of a line of dudes waiting for the pisser.

Oh, and Kriegel showed back up after the Waste alive and well, and with a delicious half-sandwich for me. Turns out we had pretty much totally forgotten to eat that day. As I said – gloriously hammered.

Dude, so much fun stuff happened, and I saw so many old friends from all across the country, and so many great performances, it would take the entire magazine to tell you the whole story. The Fest will likely become a yearly pilgrimage for me to have super fun times in Awesome Town, USA. If you run into me there next year, I will totally buy you a beer, no joke. Party.

WWW.MYSPACE.COM/THEFEST