NOFX / Hot Water Music / Fucked Up

live in Las Vegas (2010)

Marc

Flying from New York to Las Vegas takes about nine hours with a connecting flight. For a weekend of drinking, gambling and punk rock with the Punknews.org team, it was well worth it. Arriving to the Sunset Station hotel and casino in the afternoon, you could immediately notice an abundance of tattoos, piercings and band shirts.

After grabbing dinner, we were able to catch the Youth Brigade set. Not knowing any of their material, I wasn't particularly struck by the performance, but it seemed like the people who knew them were enjoying the relatively short set. It being Mother's Day weekend, they did dedicate one song to moms. They also introduced another song saying "This is a fucked up world right now, so I wish our president the best. This one goes out to him."

Fucked Up was next and even though I didn't know any of their material either, I was anticipating a good hardcore set after hearing good things from a friend. I was also forewarned that the lead singer would be getting half-naked and smashing his forehead with the mic until he drew blood. Despite not seeing blood, I wasn't disappointed in the least. The band jumped into the set sounding tight with the lead singer smashing cans of beer on his forehead, bottom end first. The guy was really bringing some awesome energy to the stage and the crowd was pumped within the first song. From watching him on stage, you can tell he's truly stoked to be playing music. By a few songs into the set, his shirt was off and he had smashed a beer bottle over his head. The crowd also helped to spread the energy, with a pit holding up the entire set. One huge guy in particular was parading in a circle with a scepter of taped-together beer cans. The singer kept joining the crowd and the pit, later thanking security for being cool, not kicking them off and even holding up the mic cord through the crowd. Back on stage, the pit king and several others began motioning unsuccessfully for the singer to join the crowd once again. Overall, the set was abundant in energy and enjoyable even for someone who had never heard Fucked Up before. The one song title I was able to catch was "Police." I'll definitely be looking forward to seeing them next time.

Hot Water Music was next. Fuck. Yes. With Punknews sponsoring, I'll call their 15-song set the Orgcore portion of the night. Chuck Ragan and company took the stage a little before 9:00, introducing their new drummer Dave, who was playing his first show with the band. Funny enough, Against Me! was playing the festival with former HWM drummer George Rebelo the very next night. After the introduction, the band went right into opener "A Flight and a Crash." The lineup of the show was one of those where the crowd gets more intense with every next band. HWM was no exception. There was more dancing, more singing, the pit was bigger and people were drunker. There may have been one fight and a few drunken fools during the set, but for the most part, people rushed to pick up any fallen comrades and the crowd was trying to be respectful, appreciating the atmosphere and seemingly the fact that fucking HWM was playing. There was an overall sense of "if you're here singing and dancing with me, you're good people."

Set list: