This really isn’t a review, but rather my recollection of amazing events. Also, please note that I only posted pics with me in them. Why? Because it is my review.
During Final Plan a guitar blew some fuse. For the next 15 minutes, the singer said some funny fucking shit. It was one zinger after another. Pretty good for being on the spot like that.
LOJ – “GET WEIRD!!!” Nu-metal dances. Dag cover.
Nice Drugs Kill shirt. Great Quicksand longsleeve.
Mental shirt with a picture of Planet Mental. Damn, that was next level shit. There may have been a frog with a trident and a turn table, I’m not sure.
Cold World showing up with boxes of merch. 10 seconds later, the crowd was 10 deep surrounding them. The crowd around the LOC table was non existent at that point despite being mobbed all weekend. Crazy. I also heard, “I bought one for me, and one that will go directly on ebay when I get home.” Cool dudes.
Dudes setting up next to Cold World had 6 porn mags open to the centerfold section. “I don’t know why they are getting all the attention, we have porn.” Later, I walked by to see the boobs, et al were censored by stickers.
CC = Venti DFJ
Casali attempted to convince a kid to return a huge stack of shirts and cds (at least 5 cds, 6-8 shirts) in order to drop the money on a Wide Awake schism shirt. Kid wouldn’t do it. “It’s got the miller tag. It’s legit.”
Rev or Bold reissuing the Join The Fight shirt. Oh wait, that’s not a highlight.
“Did some bloody kid keep hugging you during Mental? He was on stage and he kept hugging me and bleeding all over. Then he would just yell, “MENTAL!!! MENTAL!!! MENTAL!!!!!”
Murphy’s Law playing without herb or beer. “I don’t need beer or weed to have a great set … It just helps.” Murphy’s Law and Underdog tie for best reactions of the weekend.
The sound guy. Amazing. He wore a tie all 3 days. I thought he was going to lose his shit during Murphy’s Law. Then he would remember he had a board to monitor.
The after party being held at Wegman’s. Seriously, a more tattooed crew has never before descended on that store at once. Mother’s everywhere were shielding their children’s eyes. Also, one night at 2pm, we were leaving Wegman’s when a police car rolled up. It was myself, Nicole and P Lynch in the volvo and Casali and Todd in the R32. The cop rolled right by the volvo, straight to the R32. At first we were worried some shit was going down, but I got Nicole to roll down her window. I then heard a couple of key words drifting in the wind, “WRX … STI …” I knew we were ok then.
We were chilling outside with Ritter discussing shirts and whatnot when Lil Zac walks by towards his car. “How do I get into this Audi? I don’t get it.” Another dude walks over, inserts the car key into the door and simply opens the door. Zac then puts on the tiniest, wackiest bike shorts ever. “Dude, you should stuff a sock in there.” Which he then does. And then this dude proceeded to feel up his sock parts. A little weird. Then the girl rolling with Lil Zac says to me, “Wait, are you married?” “Yes, I am.” She then got spooked because she was standing around 3 married dudes. “This is too weird.”
Craig Arms is chilling with the Rampage dudes. Behind him, I see some girl climb into a shirt/merch box. It’s a little weird, and I point it out to Craig. He turns to look, turns back and reassures me, “Don’t worry, it’s a litter box.” Craig Arms = a dude.
Pranks. Lots of them. Some would blame the Baffler. Way too many “kneeling then having someone push person over” pranking. There was a large circle of people kneeling or sitting just trying to avoid being the person pranked.
Owen and Sami’s zines. Awesome. Trumbull Escapades and Soft Kittie (haha, it was something like that. Amazing name. Nearly as cool as Loveseat).
Setting up a screened tent inside the dome.
Melilo and Dave were throwing the football with some dudes in front of the HYE tent. Pretty good spirals, good accuracy. This seemingly drunk looking guy gets off the ground and joins them in the game. It seemed like they looked at him, shrugged him off and continued to throw the ball. The dude catches the ball and throws back the prettiest spiral ever. And it was completely effortless. Zero effort. Melilo and Dave hung around for a bit and then it appeared they slunk off either dumbfounded by the new Heisman guy or just finished. For their sake, I’ll assume they were finished.
Also, during the middle of day 2, this same dude is lying spread eagle, sleeping next to the HYE tent. He doesn’t move for what seemed like hours. All of a sudden, he bounces up. Which is quickly followed by a flop face first back to the ground. He gets up again, stumbles around and goes down again. At this point, I’m scrounging for a bottled water for this dude. He bounces back up again, stumbles into the side of the tent. I go catch him, and in a confused voice, he says, “where am i? where the hell am i?” I reassure him that he is at posi numbers and go back for the water. He goes down again. This time he doesn’t really get back up. I shake him, trying to get him to drink some water. He bounces back up again, wanders around, stumbles some more. I figure, “shit, I better find someone.” Unfortunately, the dudes in the go kart are playing half way across the joint. I head that way when the dude bounces up, and stumbles 30-40 yards to the pit. I lose him in the pit. Hours later, I see him, and he looks fine. I’m figuring it was an amazing prank, or I was hallucinating.
No shoe moshing and stage diving. I come out with my feet unmarred. However, I did stub my finger and now I can’t bend it completely. Lame.
Pics borrowed politely from I Wish I Was Cool.
Also, notable people I met for the first time (I think):
Scott Pesek
Bill Ferry
Dave Irving
McKaig (shit, I know I spelled that wrong)
Russ T. (buffalo style)
A girl from the UK who cleaned up on the Wrong Side merch
Dude from Down To Nothing who is still contemplating the next level Planet Mental shirt.
The Texas/Vitality Crew
Boogie, great sneakers, chomp it up
A dude from Northern UK. Sweeper thinks I was making fun of him, but I really wasn’t. — Dude if you are out there, I really wasn’t making fun of you. I swear.
Dude from Poland who lives in Worcester Mass. WTF!?!?
Amanda Rev & Nicole. Two rock stars.
Dude from Barcelona who owes me a NFAA shirt for repeatedly kicking a soccer ball into my tent, haha
Lead singer of Final Word. Good dude. Anyone who favors 99-01 dunks over current dunks, gets a nod in my book.
Dude with the moving sale who was in Blacklisted. Shit, I forgot to buy that Deadguy shirt.
Every person who bought Dumptruck merch
Notable people I was glad I got to catch up or chill with:
Casali
P Lynch
Todd Jones
Nicole Detore
CC
Sami
The whole LOC family
Bedard
Sweeper
Bob Shedd
Craig Arms
Cooch
Nick P
Josh P and Rampage
Joey C
Patrick from Texas
The Where We Stand/Vitality crew
Dan Cav
Sweet Pete — NOT, dude was a ghost on Sunday
Tre
Chris Wrenn
Ritter and his crew