Unsober in October

Holy fucking shit. This weekend is a definite competitor for best weekend of my life.
You might've had a cool weekend, y'know, you probably went out to a bar or a club and drank, like, beers or something. But I, my friend, I went to Summer In October Punkrock Fest. Actually, if you're reading this, that probably means that you were there as well or would have liked to be there.

So this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down...

FRIDAY
I arrived at the Kroenkel fairly on time. First band was due to play at 8 o'clock, and that band was The Dead 70's Show. I think they've only been around for a few months, and I've only seen 'em once before, but I'm damn excited about this band. Standard 3-guy line-up and a general feel for fast melodic pop punk. Their songs are just really catchy, and the guy's voice tops it of. High-pitched and stuff, I'm into it.

The City Rockers played a reunion show. Off the hook, right? I haven't had the luck to see them before, actually, so this was my first City Rockers show, and one of their last City Rockers shows. Totally weird. But awesome as well, I'm glad I had the chance to see 'em, cause they FUCKING RULE. Super cool punk rock, with yelling and solos and harmonies and all that shit! Cool covers that I don't really remember anymore. I remember Teenage Kicks, but there were others as well. Anyway, kick-ass show, sad I haven't seen 'em before, y'know.

Next up was Psycho 44. The place was packed all of a sudden. Psycho 44 have like a radio hit and stuff, so they're probably an odd-one-out on the line-up. Good show I guess, but I was busy making up alternations on the hit song All My Demons Have Distortion. The most obvious being "All my demons have abortions", but we thought of some funny punk-inspired ones as well. Can't really remember them. Go figure.

Then Sunpower came, saw and conquered en the party got going. Sunpower is awesome, everybody knows that! God knows what songs they played. Palm for nen euro and pintjes for nen euro twintig gets you pretty drunk. Great show, I danced, I had fun. Whoo!

The Crackups fucking killed it. Their release show for the first album was one of my first real shows I think, back in 2008. Now they released Animals On Acid, the second album and probably the best. Definitely the best. Again, I know they played a sick set, but don't ask me for anything particular. I know they played A Girl Is Only Good To Fuck which is really the best song in the whole world. There was a whole lot of crazy dancing and singing going on. Awesome vibe.

Afterparty was pretty cool, didn't last too long though. We headed off to the Swing but it was full of old people so I went to bed.

SATURDAY
Friday night killed Saturday fun. Kind of. The worst hangover, man. Anyway, had some fun playing games in the afternoon, hanging out, drinking a couple.

At 5 o'clock suddenly the festivities started again. Cool. Off The Charts soundchecked with Off With Their Heads' Clear The Air. Saw half of the show, was awesome as always.

Missed Cani Pazzi because of hangouts and helping the PDS mark their CD-Rs. Kind of a shame. Missed The Griswalds cause I'm not into them. Saw like one song and got back out for burgers, beer and hangouts

Then Shredder played. The classic "welle zin Shredder" followed by multiple blasts of trashcore or whatever it's called. Cool show. Odd-one-out though, but who cares huh?

Joe Atom brought his Spazzy Bangers with him, which were really just Ricky from the PDS and Fraser from the MBS. They played 6 Atoms songs without any rehearsal and it wasn't that bad. Props to these guys. Fun show, The Atoms are pretty cool!

The fun continued with The Murderburgers. Not really a noteworthy set but I had fun and the Murderburgers rule so yeah. Joe Atom on bass!

DeeCracks ruled. Weasel & Riverdales cover: been there, done that. MUGWUMPS cover (with Ricky D): best thing ever. Thank God their own songs are wicked cool as well so a GREAT set alltogether. Joe Atom on bass!

Then the madness began. Priceduifkes CD release. Starting out with some long-ass intro and then banging into the show. They played close to all -if not all- songs of the new record, which was AWESOME because that album is awesome. Can't Lose will probably end up on my top 10 list. So fucking good. Just like the show. It's actually better live because it's faster. The crowd went nuts, me too (not all the time though, that shit is dangerous). They had brought a organ, which MC Ferdi played, to cover Cool Kids (Weasel) and Apekermis (Novtales). Other covers included Gainesville (D4) and that was of course off the hook crazy and super relevant. Great show, new album rox my sox and it will rox your sox too!
Get into it. For fans of drinking beer, porn sites, Star Wars, love and materialism. Now that I come to think of it, thematically this is very similar to the demo songs, but the songs are like 32 times better. More or less.

Red City Radio kept the rocking going. Amazing band, amazing live peformance. Even more punchy on stage than on the record. They covered ALL by the Descendents, great choice. A set full of fun, singing along, air guitars, and so on. Stellar band!

Whoo! The Apers started playing some goddamn songs, including One More Second Chance, which is cool because I don't think I've heard them play that one live. I love those guys and I love Kevin Aper.
Suddenly Wimpy Rutherford came out and -of course- they hit up We'd Have A Riot Doing Heroin. What else, right? Now, when I listen to the recordings, from like 1984, of these songs I don't get too excited. But Wimpy is definitely the man and with The Apers backing him up in 2011, with a more modern sound-age and an amazing live performance this became one hell of a show in no time. I'll be honest, I like Joe Queer miuch better than Wimpy but it's just something different really. Anyway, of course I sang along to hits like This Place Sucks (I had expected to hear it 2 times, but 3 times was even better), Didn't Want None, I Want Cunt and all the other hits. Ramones covers. A new Apers song. Another Apers song. Awesome set.

The afterparty was the best afterparty ever. Hit after hit after hit song and there still was a lot of people dancing, singing and drinking beer so I had so much fun. Thanks to Jelle Gommers for spinning a good deal of Parry Gripp/Nerf Herder songs!
Got to meet some people, made some new buddies, saw a lot of old buddies, had the most fun ever.
God I love this shit.
God I love this shittown.