Written By: Darwin Green (Senior Editor)
Photos By: Mehra Romezi
View all of Mehra's photos here.
12/04/09 - NoFX is, hands down, one of the best punk bands to emerge from the garages of the Bay Area in the early 80s, and with Punk in Drublic achieved critical and commercial acclaim for their no-nonsense, no-frills, no-effects style. They’re a band that continues to drive home the punk ideals into its listeners without apology or any bow towards pretense, and have influenced countless imitators, inspired many fans, and continue to thrive amongst electro-pop and other such genres of the new millenium.
The Fox Theater in Pomona lies somewhere in the area between Los Angeles and Riverside. It’s not the most, let’s say, impressive area for a band to play, yet still books great acts and draws large audiences. For someone in Los Angeles, the drive can take upwards of three hours, with traffic, so when I met people in line who drove from places like Ontario, Canada and Arizona, it impressed upon me that NoFX has some serious fans.
Once in there I walked down to the pit area, where I waited through the opening acts, who were pretty good. The first one, Dead to Me, caught my attention as an emerging punk band with the same insouciance and irreverence that any good punk band should possess, particularly toward the heckling crowd shouting insults and throwing drinks. The singer boasted a song with lyrics “stolen from Charles Bukowski.” A man after my own heart.After they left, and after the second opening act played their set, a bunch of people rushed the pit past the security guards, who looked like they were trying to push back a giant stream with nothing but sweaty and muscled humans spraying past the sides of their hands. It was all I could do to remain standing as the flow of enormous mammals with shaved heads stampeded their way into the crowd. I began to wonder if it was such a good idea to remain there.
I waited though, despite concern of being trampled underhoof. NoFX teased the audience some, then came out and opened with “Linoleum.” The crowd came to shove and be shoved throughout the entire pit, not just some small circle in the center, the entire thing. I ended up getting knocked over into some people as I inadvertently shoved some featherweight kid into the mercy of the circular mass of people gaining momentum like a hurricane. I felt like a sissy when I saw some waifish girl try and push a large bald guy with a goatee with no result, while I considered leaving.
I mustered on. The band took breaks between songs to tell some Jewish or Mexican jokes or crack wise at the audience, and then launched into some such song as “Murder the Government.” The great thing about punk is that the songs all usually last less than three minutes, if that, which means the band can pack thirty or forty songs into a set. NoFX knew how to space the energy. Just when one thought it was safe, like with the slow opening of “Reeko,” they would immediately pick up the energy, and the musty, massive bodies would start crashing into each other.They loved the audience, and the audience loved them back.
They ended with “Don’t Call Me White,” and afterwards danced to a song that addressed the racist remarks any one of the people in the audience might find offensive. The basic theme came through as: we’re all a little racist so just laugh at the jokes because they’re funny. Whatever one felt about the message of their songs, or about the type of humor they have, the band kept their own after all the years they’ve been around.
