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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2008 > November > 09 > Entry
Fun Fun Fun Fest: the punk stage
Time for a confession that’ll likely get my already expired punk rock clubhouse membership card revoked altogether: Going into Saturday’s Day 1 of the Fun Fun Fun Fest I was pretty much a newcomer to the throwback punk vets on the fest’s third stage. Had never heard ALL, only knew a couple Dead Milkmen songs and my knowledge about the Adolescents could fit in a beer bottle cap.
“Sacrilege!” the tattooed masses say. Probably right.
I mean, I like punk. A lot. The Clash are a top-three band for me, and Rancid, Operation Ivy, the Stooges, New Bomb Turks, NoFX, Rocket From the Crypt and Austin’s Riverboat Gamblers all pull extra heavy duty on my iPod.
But I was never a completist and so missed a lot of the heavies even while loving local mid-level Michigan punk and hardcore bands who likely aped every riff from the big boys. So I barely knew Fugazi for a long time and only got into Sunday FFF Fest headliners Bad Brains because the Beastie Boys were such vocal champions of the hardcore legends.
Given that, I approached Saturday uneasily. Don’t get me wrong - as I neared the crowd around Stage 3 and the massive hardcore roar of Integrity became clearer I felt in a way transported. The mohawks, safety pins, Casualties and Exploited patches and decades-old tattoos scattered in the crowd brought back memories that made me feel half my 30 years.
And the loud/hard/fast fury of punk will always connect with me way deeper than the heartfelt, pained creations of the indie masses on the fest’s other three stages, a point Adolescents singer Tony Cadena alluded by thanking the crowd for “coming to see the bands who don’t have publicists.” Nice.
So it was catchup time on Saturday - punk rock Crib Notes if you wanna spin it like that - and here’s what I learned:
You can’t go back. As much as the riffs, shouted/yelped vocals and tales of societal and personal torment fit the template of lots of stuff I’ve loved through the years, you can’t force yourself to like something, even if it’s considered genre canon.
Because the thing about punk - the thing that’s always made it the soundtrack for the discontented and marginalized - is its of-the-moment urgency and its knack for scratching that anti-whatever itch lots of us develop around ages 12-15. Post-college and 10 years into a professional carer it’s harder to muster the angst that provides the fertile ground and lets the right band with the right two chords take root.
That brilliance and release can pop back up later in life, of course, but it’s a completely unpredictable blessing that hits you in the head like an anvil.
Given that, I couldn’t have gone into Saturday and planned to be blown away by those bands any more than I could plan to go to a club tomorrow and fall head-over-feet in love. It just don’t work that way, which is part of what makes those elusive moments so extraordinary.
Not that Saturday was a lost night - I mean I’ll always hold to my belief that Stage 1 headliners the National have only one really good song — and that’s it.
While I didn’t connect with ALL one bit, the Adolescents deserve further investigation and there will definitely be some Dead Milkmen added to the iPod soon.
For lots of the thousands gathered Saturday night the throwback/reunion lineup provided welcome cruises down Memory Lanes most never thought they’d get to see again. For me, it was more of a sightseeing journey.
Not exactly what I had in mind, but to be able to take that trip was worthwhile enough.
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