The Fest 7 in Gainesville, Florida

Flew in thursday night, first thing bought was yuengling. It was late, so we just went straight to the hotel and checked in (Super 8). The next day, woke up earlier than I should have and around 11, we headed over to the fest hotel to get ready to register.

We're just standing around as no one knows where to go or anything, and I notice people i recognize walking by. It was the bouncing souls, and they tried to check in and only one of their rooms was ready. Trying to figure out how to decide who got it, Shamus suggested Odds and Evens. They did it, and the loser (the drummer) protested that he "wasn't ready". Then shamus suggested that there should be an outside referee, and they appointed him. Thusly, he caused greg to lose, even as DJ values siked him up for the challenge.

Upon our entry upon the premises of the holiday inn, we went up to the registration spot and got on a pretty short line with really only about 50 people in front of us, within 20 minutes we were registered and checking out the 'flea market'. Pretty unremarkable, except when they switched out one of the tables selling glass with a pro-obama table, keeping the small price signs, which led to funnyness like a picture of obama with a sign over it that said "Glass pipes, $15".

We went up to the third floor rooftop pool reception and hung out for a while, everyone that jumped in the pool freaked out over how absolutely freezing it was, which was funny. After a few hours, we decided to walk around towards the downtown and the venues.

First, we went to "Common Grounds", for myself to see Ringers, and for shamus to see them, chinese telephones, the falcon, and underground railroad to candyland. As I was very worried about not being able to get into venues (a fear that i later found out was completely unfounded but not until it was too late the last day), I left after only seeing 4 Ringers songs. But they were good.

I headed over to The Venue, which was the main venue for The Fest. First up in the small side room, was Gimme Drugs. They were really, really good. I really was into Jesse(????)'s vocals, and just enjoyed the music. Next, up first on the mainstage, was Rehasher, who I don't know very well but what I know, I like. It was their first show in 2 years, and they were great. When their set was coming to a close, they said "OK, we ran out of songs, but we're going to play two covers....this band is breaking up. fuck you! dont break up you assholes!" and went on to play the ergs pray for rain and saturday night craporama...and it was awesome! The kids that knew what was going on freaked out, myself included. Right after they finished and i was so jazzed about it all, I turned around only to see my friend Kate running at me and yelling my name, I was surprised, amused, and happy. Up next on the main stage was Ann Beretta, playing their last (electric) show. I got a great place to stand, two steps up from the floor directly in front of the singers view, so he could see my Worthless shirt the entire set. He saw it, and glared and grimaced the entire time. They didnt play fire in the hold, but they did play another song that sounded like a Worthless song. All in all, band isnt so bad when they arent ripping off worthless. After them was Strike Anywhere, opening up with two older songs, and I thought that maybe i'd be real into the set after all. Not so, as after that they just started playing lots of stupid new shitty songs. I left only to come back later as they were closing with sunset on 32nd.

Finally, Less Than Jake was set to play, I was happy to see them in their hometown. To the soundclip at the beginning of Hello Rockview, they came out dressed as cops and went straight into Last one Out of Liberty City, and then played My Own Flag. Other songs they played included automatic, sugar in your gas tank, johnny quest, never going back to new jersey (with intro), doug hastings, jen doesnt like me anymore, help save the youth of america from exploding, all my best friends are metalheads (with intro), scott farcas, look what happened, the ghosts of me and you, plastic cup politics, two songs from the new record, and closed with gainesville rock city. Even though they didnt play other songs I wanted to hear, it was a great set, at one point coming out with boxes upon boxes of doughnuts and throwing them into the crowd. I lost my voice shouting for them to play "malt liquor tastes better...". After the set I felt like I was seriously done for, even though I hadn't even moshed at all.

Headlining the first night were The Bouncing Souls doing an entire pre-96 set....and it ruled. They stuck only to material from good bad argyle and maniacal laughter and didnt go further back. Songs included i like your mom, the guest, 80s movies, joe lies, some kind of wonderful, old school, neurotic, and all of maniacal laughter. The 80's movies quote was: none, they just yelled and kept going in the song. Everyone was into it. Finally, they said "we're going to play one that isnt pre-96" and played True Believers. Great set.

After this, Paint it Black had planned on playing in the lot across the street from the venue. I left the venue even as cops were coming in to shut the show down, apparently. Across the street was a vacant lot, and beyond that and across another street, was a parking lot with a crowd of people...and a Uhaul truck. I ran over and heard only drums and singing. Kids were jumping off the top of the truck. When the song ended the band kind of just stopped, until kids started singing another song. Dan dove from the truck and sang. The next thing you hear is someone yelling "460! RUN!" to which someone else replied, "Horses? I dont see any horses!" The next thing you hear are tons of whistles, cop cars and firetrucks at the venues. And horses. cops on horses. With whistles. Those cops assaulted everyone with the threat of trampling by horse...for no reason. After the cops made everyone disperse (........?) I walked to my car, and not four blocks away almost got mugged. Great use of police. Then, I was not one block away on the same street when these two drunk black girls pushed each other in front of my car. Again, GREAT policing in that town.

Saturday. Headed over to the Market Street Pub and caught this band The Swellers. Personally, I have no idea what they were like. At some point I headed over to the venue, again, to make sure that I would be able to get in. Up first was Atom and His Package. Very unremarkable. Then Coalesce went on, to some of the worst dancing I have ever seen. Band was pretty alright. Up next, The Lawrence Arms played and only played two songs i knew. Great, drunken stage banter though, even if they forgot to say what number show they were playing. After them, None More Black took the stage. Opening with We Dance on the Ruins of this stupid stage, they also played nothing to do when you're locked in a vacancy, oh theres legwork, peace on mars, everyday balloons, dinners for suckers, banned from teen arts, wallpaper looks like paint, zing pong, opinions and assholes, peanut butter, and closed with drop the pop, to the end of which i lost my mind and ran a bunch of people over. Great set. After that, Paint It Black played a set, commenting on the attack of centaurs at the attempted show the night before, "Half man/half pig". After them, Municipal Waste took the stage, and proceeded to throw out many, many small shot bags of vodka to the crowd, and had everyone take the shot at the same time. Hilarious. Then, they proceeded to play one of the craziest, funnest sets I have ever seen. I dont know any of their songs really, but it was still a good time. They even covered SOD's "United Forces".

After Municipal Waste, I headed over to The Kickstand to catch the degenerics. I got there early and saw Slingshot Dakota, who was pretty cool, and the sidekicks. When The Degenerics went on, there was so much jersey around. cashman. jay insult, j. porter. fid. it was an awesome time and they played an awesome set. After them, the Star Fucking Hipsters went on, I watched a song but then left and got the car and waited for shamus so we could head out to the middle of nowhere...

About 5 miles out of town, there was a small warehouse/storage area over some train tracks off a highway. One of these garages had been turned into a practice space. And in this space, they were holding a show. While I forget the name of the first band, I certainly remember the name of the second. None More Black played to about a hundred people, with Colin saying "This is the REAL fest!" They played an abbreviated version of the set they had played earlier, but were that much drunker, and that much more excited. It was absolutely awesome. Following this, I felt like I was dead, and didn't care to see the new mexican disaster squad play their last show, or the shook ones, etc, so I went to the hotel and passed out.

On the final day of the fest, shamus and I checked out of our super 8 motel, headed to the downtown area, and ended up at the market street pub first, and caught Jawsome. I didnt really like them. Next, I planned to see san diego's own Dan Padilla at the Atlantic, but the line refused to move. So I headed over to the venue and saw a bar across the street that was part of the fest and went into it. Called Durty Nelly's, this irish bar looked pretty cool. The band also looked pretty cool, Deep and Holy Sea. However, they took way too long to go on and i was restless so i left and seriously walked like 3 miles within this 2 block area back and forth, waiting for something worth checking out. After going into various venues and being bored, I finally got on line for the venue. The Arrivals went on first and were all right. I wasn't into Off With Their Heads at all. Toys that Kill were much better when I saw them at babe's warehouse in long beach.

Then, The Ergs went on. I'm not going to go super into detail here, but for the first set they played a mix of really old songs and newer songs. The set was good. Towards the end, a comment from the band: "We have a few songs left, and then we're up next". Up next was them playing all of dorkrockcorkrod, and it was a blast. Mikey didnt know the words to a few songs, but that was only funny. Coming to the end, I thought they would close with upstairs downstairs, but instead DID NOT PLAY IT!>!?>!JIOfjeoiajfd and played two covers instead. While bikeage is a great song, I'd rather have heard them played upstairsdownstairs and destroyed everything.

After that, we headed to the failsafe warehouse again, hearing that the lawrence arms were playing at 10pm. Unfortunately, the show actually started at midnight, and they werent playing. We caught a few bands including anti-lectual, who played a horrible cover of a face to face song (ordinary), as well as another band who covered coffee mug. After that, we headed over to the fest hotel which we were staying at that night, and shamus got caught in an elevator.