The Fest 12 – Halloween Weekend 2013

At the Holiday Inn after party on Sunday night, Tony Weinbender – the mastermind behind The Fest – said “I wish we printed ‘I survived Fest 12’ tshirts with all the dates on it, because this was insane.” And he’s right; I wish we had those tshirts now because as I sit here, three days later, I’m sore, bruised, sick, exhausted and still can’t speak. I should not have survived six days of The Fest; but I did and I wouldn’t change a thing.

For those interested in the music, The Fest is punk rock paradise – a celebration of music, community, beer and friendships. To truly put words to the feelings it creates is nearly impossible; like the best things in life, it must be experienced to be understood. At its core, it’s simply a punk festival with bands and fans travelling thousands of miles across the globe to hang out together for one glorious weekend every year in Gainesville, Florida;  but that’s just the start.

For its twelfth year, Weinbender extended the length of the festival. What was normally three days in Gainesville was now stretched to four days in Gainesville for The Fest 12 and two days in Ybor City for Big Pre-Fest In Little Ybor. The addition of the pre-fest offered many benefits for Fest go-ers. It made it more of a vacation, a more substantial reason to fly from Ireland so that you’re non-punk friends will understand why you fly across the globe for such a short trip. Visitors got to see a new city and people who work on the weekend were able to actually take in the music for once.

The best part, though, was that the hundred-plus bands partaking in Pre-Fest all played second shows at The Fest as well. This eased some scheduling conflicts because four hundred bands playing in four days is hard to all squeeze together. There were still conflicts – Wolf-Face played against Bouncing Souls in Tampa and Dillinger Four in Gainesville and lost both battles in my schedule; but the fact that Andrew Jackson Jihad lost to the back-to-back performances of Dudes Night and Banner Pilot in Tampa was made much easier as their Halloween performance in Gainesville fit in nicely between the start of the Ann Berretta reunion and Tim Barry’s set at Florida Theatre.

More so, it also gave bands second chances. Ohio’s pop-punkers Mixtapes played a sloppy and somewhat underwhelming Pre-Fest set made up of all requests, but their final three songs I caught at 8 Seconds that cumulated with a wall of death for Nothing Can Kill The Grimace became one of the weekend’s highlights.

And that’s saying something, as The Fest 12 was full of highlights. Whether it was dancing under the fresh Floridian night sky at Boca Fiesta for Atlanta’s The Wild or seeing Paddy from Dillinger Four apologize to Lauren Measure (in complete sincerity) for taking of his shirt before jumping into Doublewhiskeycokenoice, it was a varied and exciting six days. The passionate lyrics of Paul Baribeau made me shed a tear and shiver as the crowd yelled along to Never Know, yet the same performance also showed how much of an asshole he really can be. Crust-punks Rvivr played in a field outside CMC on Friday night as part of Queer The Fest before taking over 8 Seconds the day after and condemning crowd-surfing (which many people chose to ignore).  The Lawrence Arms walked onto the stage to an epic pre-recorded introduction that was unintentionally interrupted by painful guitar squeal, and the on-stage proposal made everyone cheer.

Cover sets were all the rage – especially for the slew of mystery bands;  The Holy Mess began the trend by doing a full Alkaline Trio set in Ybor  City that kicked off the entire weekend. It cumulated at the Holiday Inn after show as The Hold Steady, Green Day, Operation Ivy, Nirvana and The Pixies were performed by Astpai, White Wives, Who Needs You Ft. Mikey Erg, Reverse The Curse and Dikembe respectively.  

In between there was a Rites of Spring show by Calculator, Prevenge tried some Minor Threat tunes, Leagues Apart did Rancid and members of Worn In Red with Sea of Storm made Durty Nelly’s go wild with another Operation Ivy set. Get Dead tackled No Use For A Name‘s Premedicated Murder, The Flatliners did an entire set of b-sides and covers in the jammed packed Mars Pub and Mustard Plug got people skanking even harder with their take on Roots Radical.

Speaking about ska, Big D & The Kids Table won for best band costume as they all donned massive skulls with glowing red eyes. It was too bad the masks muffled Dave McWane’s voice for the first few songs. However, seeing pictures of The Bouncing Souls as members of Kiss may give Big D a run for their money for best Halloween costume.

With so many bands over such a long period of time, you’re able to see more sets than ever before. Of course you had your must see sets – The Menzingers at Florida Theatre was so packed you couldn’t move an inch and missing The Souls play How I Spent My Summer Vacation would’ve been crazy – but you could also experiment. Devon Kay and the Soutions tore Rocky’s apart with a set that left silly string sticking to the ceiling all weekend. Rational Anthem were my personal surprise of the weekend, discovered at a house show on a side of a highway in Tampa, yet the way friends gushed over Modern Baseball means there must have been something there too.  Red City Radio lived up to their hype they’ve been garnering and Annabel – who are boring as fuck on album – were actually pretty entertaining live.

As mentioned before, conflicts were unavoidable. Junior Battles would’ve been great to see again as their Fest 9 performance, and Pouzza Fest 2012 set too, are sets I’ll never forget. Sadly, to see them would’ve meant saying farewell to my coveted spot at Loosey’s for The Gateway District and Direct Hit, something I couldn’t quite do. Jabber had recently caught my ear but lost to my Canadian brethren in The Flatliners – who, on a side note, slayed it. However, they themselves fell short to Paul Baribeau in Ybor, so it all comes full circle.  Sometimes sheer laziness and peer pressure won too; seeing The Slow Death was on my agenda at New World Brewery but as I was already in The Ritz for Banner Pilot and had a friend pulling me to the mainstage to see them, The Copyrights won that time slot.

The list of shows and bands could go on. Iron Chic were the perfect Fest band at 8 Seconds, Masked Intruder somehow jumped from Durty Nelly’s to Florida Theatre in just one year and still managed to pack it; and Andrew Cream, my Fest 11 friend from last year, travelled back to town from the UK to play an relaxing set at CMC Saturday afternoon before Coffee Project re-united at the Lunchbox and had local Gainesville residents of all ages stopping by and listening. A Wilhelm Scream, about to release Partycrasher on No Idea Records, brought their melodic hardcore to the sunshine state and opened up the pit in Ybor. Chris Farren of Fake Problems created the Fesy persona as they finally came out of hiding after recording a new album for what seems like forever and Captain, We’re Sinking ended Saturday night with crowd surfers flying everywhere.

As always, Tony did a fantastic job with the band selection and the music available to see live is a dream come true for any punk fan. Over the course of six days, if you take into account the house show and after-party, I saw a grand total of 95 sets – some partials and many complete.

95 bands. 95 live sets. 95. In only six days. That’s a lot of music and somehow those 95 bands are only half of what The Fest 12 will be in my memory banks. The Fest has that intangible quality that makes it much more than just the music – it’s a celebration of a life style, a community and a point of view that keeps me coming back year after year.

The music is always the focus, but the culture behind it creates the atmosphere. Nowhere else will one guy bring eight cases of pineapples and countless jugs of rum so everyone can drink out of pineapples all weekend once they get tired of PBRs. Nowhere else will you become friends with someone after you dare them to eat a twinkie in the registration line-up. Nowhere else would it be acceptable to do acoustic sing-alongs in a hotel lobby until seven in the morning, night after night after night. Nowhere else will you meet someone one day and get a matching tattoo with them the next.

Yet, it all happens at The Fest.

You entertain yourself with little sidegames – like “Spot Mikey Erg” where you get a point every time you see him play a set or he magically appears beside you. Keep your eyes open, he’s absolutely everywhere. The game should’ve extended to also include a “Spot Chris Cresswell” spinoff as he not only played three Flatliners set and a solo set, but also sang guest vocals for Dillinger Four, Astpai, Broadway Calls and one more band that I can`t recall.

You quickly learn that it`s not a smart idea to climb palm trees if you don`t want slivers all over your body as you come down and that a good friend will stop at nothing to buy butterfly bandaids to fix a gash in your head from a mosh pit accident.

So yes, Off With Their Heads played an undeniably solid show at 8 Seconds, I finally saw Samiam play Sunshine live and Underground Railroad To Candyland has more percussion then you can count – yet the best moments are those moments spent with your Fest Friends. It`s skipping Larry and His Flask to go to Ladies Night at Coyote Ugly with people you just met (don`t worry, we made sure to see Larry at Fest to make up for it), it`s seeing Chris #2 from Anti-Flag playing Dookie in its entirety and singing along with friends from all over Canada. It’s giving someone a piggyback ride down University Ave and getting a hundred high fives in a matter of minutes. It’s a complete stranger buying everyone McDondald’s breakfast sandwiches the instant they start serving. These are the moments you’ll cherish forever, and the friends you’ll visit year after year.

All of it takes a toll on your body though, which is why I want the “I Survived Fest 12” tshirt. By Sunday, the crowds were thinning out. I crawled out of bed with every intention to watch Filmage but arrived woefully late. So after lying in the park by Lunchbox for a bit, the day began with an acoustic set by The Shell Corporation that saw them do four Propagandhi covers. Stumbling around like a zombie afterwards, from Tubers to Matt Evans, Astpai to White Wives and Candy Hearts, I felt the effects of watching the sun come up everyday all week and the crowds were quite sparse compared to previous afternoons. It wasn’t until Nothington kicked off at Durty Nelly’s that I began to finally awaken.

I never learn though, and stayed up till seven AM again – spending as much time with my friends, both new and old alike, as I possibly could. It will be 51 weeks before we see each other again, but it’ll be like we never left.

And that, makes the pain worth it.