NOFX / Swingin' Utters / Epoxies

live in London (2004)

joe

It had been a while since NOFX had undergone a headline tour of the UK, and I was waiting in anticipation for months for this show, because NOFX are my favourite band (regardless of whether this makes me un-punk or not). The evening was soured by the fact that I had money stolen from me on the way to the gig, but I tried to put on a brave face and let the show take my mind off of it. The Epoxies, a synth-punk band recently signed to Fat Wreck, kicked things off and seemed to go down well with the crowd but were a bit samey and forgettable in my opinion - the singer seemed to try far too hard to stretch her vocal chords to their limit to no real effect.

Next came the Swingin' Utters, a band who are somewhat overlooked and not the most well-known on the Fat roster, and they did very well in getting the front rows into a frenzy despite being hampered by poor sound; they played "Glad", "Five Lessons Learned", "Pills and Smoke" and "Next In Line", which is fine, but their slot was a very short one which seemed to go by very quickly. Not bad, but they could've been better.

NOFX came out with a massive poster of the George Bush in a clown costume picture which adorns the cover of "The War on Errorism" behind them, and burst into "Murder the Government". They have a really confident stage presence which is due to their 20 years together and they indulged in a lot of crowd-pleasing stage banter, having a pop at Good Charlotte, The Darkness, under-18's and Scotland as well as some obvious diatribes against George W. They were surprisingly very tight musically, and played some songs which they themselves admitted to have never played often before, examples being "Reeko", "I'm Telling Tim" and "Bleeding Heart Disease" (I think that's what it's called, it's a song from Heavy Petting Zoo, one of the few NOFX albums I don't own). A good time was seemingly had by all, and NOFX are definitely a good live band to check out.

Setlist (not in order):

WHITE TRASH, TWO HEEBS AND A BEAN
Bob,
Stickin' In My Eye

PUNK IN DRUBLIC
Linoleum
Perfect Government
Reeko
Scavenger Type
The Brews
My Heart Is Yearning

HEAVY PETTING ZOO
Bleeding Heart Disease

SO LONG AND THANKS FOR ALL THE SHOES
Murder The Government
All His Suits Are Torn
I'm Telling Tim
Champs Elysees

PUMP UP THE VALUUM
What's The Matter With Parents Today?
Dinosaurs Will Die
Louise
Pharmacist's Daughter
Bottles To The Ground
Theme From A NOFX Album

THE WAR ON ERRORISM
The Seperation of Church and Skate
Franco Un-American
Whoops, I OD

and also Kill All The White Man from one of the Fat comps