THE FEST: A RECAP!

On Sunday I'll be taking off for a week to go on tour with my band Mistletoe. If you live in the Northeast come see us. For dates check here: http://www.myspace.com/mistletoe315
But before this goes down I wanted to do a quick report on going down to Gainesville for The Fest, which was over Halloween weekend (and my birthday).
I wrote up this big thing on it, but that would take entirely too long to post up here, so I thought I'd do some sort of quick, bullet point-style recap.

Thursday, 10.30.08
- Woke up at 7:30AM, picked up the rental minivan, picked up dudes, and got on the road around 10AM
- Made a stop in Richmond because it's great there. Harrison St. Coffeehouse and Panda Kahn never disappoint
- Listened to Sleep, "Jerusalem" in it's entirety. We decided that if we got lost we'd just have to look for the smoke. Eventually it would lead to the riff-filled land
- Stopped driving around 2AM when I hit South Of the Border (S. Carolina). Night shift took over.
- Dan and Trev Rock decided to shotgun a Moxie every time we crossed a state line. That's disgusting.
- I woke up in a parking lot in Gainesville

Friday, 10.31.08
- Wandered around downtown Gainesville for a couple hours before registration and found a couple of the venues shows would be at
- Registered right at noon and waited in line about 10 minutes. After looking at some distros I left and the line was already out the door, out another room, down a hallway, down two flights of stairs, through the hotel lobby, and out the door. Good thing I got there early
- Wandered looking for decent coffee and came across a joint called Volta who were super-serious about their coffee. It was pretty good too.
- Found a great little record store called Wayward Council... sweet place.
- Weren't too many bands I wanted to see this day (Ringers, Amateur Party, Halo Fauna), so I discovered a couple really good new ones (Serious Geniuses, Brainworms)
- Watched Paint It Black play inside a U-Haul truck in a parking lot for about 5 minutes with around 500 other people until the cops came on horseback and shut it down. It was total madness.

Saturday, 11.1.08
- We got up early because some dudes wanted to go to a morning house show. I should have went. It ended up being Brainworms, Cult Ritual, Ampere, and Cheeky
- Instead the rest of us went to a nearby coffee place called Coffee Culture. It looked like a convenient store from the outside, but ended up being one of the coolest places around. Plus the girls who worked there were rad.
- We all then went to No Idea Records headquarters for a BBQ/record sale. Seems fun? Not at all. I can't believe there was a line of at least 200 people lined up just to look at records. So dumb. Just because stuff you can get online is a few bucks cheaper does NOT warrant standing in line for two hours to buy stuff. What is this, the day after Thanksgiving?
- Time for bands. I spent the first portion of the day at a venue called 1982 watching Olehole (kinda Quicksand-ish post hardcore), Prize Country (best, most overlooked band ever), Liquid Limbs (sweet 2-man Torche/prog-ish stuff), Benard (heavy... um... screamo... but good!), Mouthbreather (really tight and heavy rock-hardcore), and Jena Berlin (small crowd, but so into it, including a sweet ceiling walk)
- Went to The Venue to see Coalesce. It was a huge place. I was skeptical because Coalesce has sucked the last couple reunions I saw them on. This time was like seeing them back in '95. I feared for my life. It was insane, noisy, heavy, awesome, and put a huge grin on my face. Totally awesome to see them back in killing mode again.
- From here it got wacky because I kept going back and forth to different venues that were pretty good walking distance from one another to see bands I really wanted to see. I won't get into details, but to make it succinct: Suicide Note were incredible, Lemuria played to the biggest crowd I'd ever seen them play to and everyone loved it, same for Bridge and Tunnel (and they totally shred as well), Sinaloa was good but it was sort of a bad setting for them in my opinion, Young Livers were so tight and got everyone pretty rowdy, what I saw of Able Baker Fox (ex- Casket Lottery and Small Brown Bike) was really good, O'Pioneers were pretty good, and Young Widows played "Old Wounds" from start to finish, note for note, near perfect. Amazing.
- Oh yeah... I was skeptical of the whole Fest a bit because it was sponsored in part by a beer company and I had a bit of an ethical dilema, as well as a fear of drunk assholes getting in my face all weekend. Thankfully, everyone was pretty damn respectable for the most part. Everyone I came across appeared to be in a good mood and was very friendly. Unfortunately, smoking is still allowed indoors at clubs and that drove my sinuses nuts at times.
- Lemuria were staying at the same hotel as us and some time during the night some jerkoff's ran into their room, jumped all over their beds, and then ran off. No one seems to know exactly what transpired, but if anyone has any information leading to these culprits send it to me and we'll see to it they get their comeuppance.

Sunday, 11.2.08
-It's strange to wake up in another state on your birthday. but that's what I did today and I didn't even seem to notice it.
- Went to another morning house/ backyard show that Slingshot Dakota and Teenage Cool Kids played. Teenage Cool Kids were fucking great. I highly suggest checking them out. Slingshot covered "Waiting Room"... sweet.
- Went back to Coffee Culture. Great place. Just fantastic.
- Went over to the Kickstand (a really sweet venue by the way) to see Teenage Cool Kids again. Excellent stuff.
- Made our way down to Market St. Pub, which looks like a cross between a Bourbon Street saloon and a rave club. It was confusing. I wanted to see Affirmative Action Jackson and kinda wanted to see Hour Of the Wolf.
- AAJ were OK (not as funny as when I'd seen them before). HOTW were one of the best bands I'd ever seen. Before even playing the singer was shouting, "I did a rain dance! I feel great! I did a rain dance! We're gonna kill you!" The bassist played naked, and the next twenty minutes were a blur of total chaos. Other wonderful quotes from the singer (who also smashed his head over and over with the mic and threw a full can of garbage into the audience, which he also drank out of): "You guys are a bunch of anarchies!", "Punk Fest. Hardcore Fest. Beer Fest. Fuck Fest. You're all gonna fuck. You all have diseases!", "We're not serious" (guitarist). "This is fucking serious!" (singer) "Who are you?!" (to bassist). "I don't even know these guys" (bassist). It was excellent.
- Nothing could really top that so seeing Off With Their Heads and The Ergs in the giant, smoke-filled Venue didn't fill me with as much glee as it could have.
- Apparently, one of my cohorts was crowd-surfing during The Ergs and someone tried to steal his shoe so he beat the guy over the head with it and got kicked out. Good for him.
- I attempted to walk really damn far to see Minus the Bear but they weren't letting anyone else in. Sweet walk.
- No interest in seeing Leatherface, so I waited outside 'til my friends came out and we immediately bailed out of Gainesville for a non-stop 18 hour drive back to Syracuse. It was pretty unexciting for the most part getting back, plus my voice was shot at that point so conversation was rather pointless.
- Got a shit ton of great records and made some new pals. Life is good. Fest was rad.