Holy hell, where do I even start? No Values Festival was a chaotic sweaty day of punk rock madness. Your favorite band was there, but you just might have missed your second favorite band to see them.
The Good:
• Agent Orange with Jello Biafra belting out “Police Truck” was a match made in punk heaven.
• Dead Milkmen were absolutely killer. They were an early favorite, they played it smart and rocked their hits early so they could send their fans off happy half way through the set catch The Damned—talk about punk rock hospitality. They played ‘Punk Rock Girl’, ‘Nutrition’, and ‘Bitchin’ Camaro’ before the crowd was literally urged by them to see The Damned.
• Lawrence Arms might’ve been the underdog with The Damned playing at the same time (we were quite literally the only press during their set, but they’re our friend Craig’s favorite band and we’d never seen them live, so… we did it) but damn, did they deliver! It was a sun soaked set. but the crowd loved it, albeit sunburned and sweaty.
• Sublime —Jakob’s on fire! Bradley’s kid Jakob has taken his rightful thrown as the frontman to Sublime. He manages to sing like his dad, without emulating him. It’s a perfect fit. You could tell the band was happy, and the crowd was ecstatic. They knew to keep it a punk set, opening with Date Rape and ripping into covers of Bad Religion and Descendents.
• L7—Caught a quick couple on the way to Iggy, and yep, they’ve still got that riot grrrl rage. One of the tightest bands of the day, these living legends still have “it”.
• Iggy Pop, the godfather of punk himself, threw down a Stooges heavy set. Complete with a circle pit we sure didn’t see when we last saw him at Cruel World last year. Opened with ‘TV Eye’, into ‘Raw Power’, ‘I got a Right’, and ‘Gimme Danger’ before he slowed it down a bit with crowd sing alongs ‘The Passenger’ and ‘Lust for Life’
• Power Trip—new singer, who dis? We booked it over to see Power Trip on one of their first shows with new singer Seth Gilmore. The band was on hiatus since Riley Gabe passed in 2020 (fuck fentanyl!) but this version 2.0 is just as heavy as ever. The crowd turned into a living, breathing pit of insanity. Security was worked harder during this set than the whole rest of the day- damn near the whole crowd surfed over the rail at one point of another.
• Exploited— kicked ass as always. Opening up with ‘Dogs of War’ the crowd was all in for whatever Wattie and crew had in store. Quickly followed by ‘Chaos is my Life’, ‘Noize Annoys’, and ‘Alternative’ before we had to hop along to the next set.
Viagra Boys—oozing charisma. We’ve heard people talking about how great these Swedes are for years, and this was our first opportunity to check them out. These guys are just plain fun to watch live. Singer Sebastian Murphy walked out and said “I’ve never seen so many punks in my life, so many freaks!” and the crowd went wild hanging onto every word. Murphy has such a faux machismo swagger with his beer belly and tracksuit pants, we simply couldn’t get a bad picture of this guy if we tried (or quite possibly, they’re all bad pictures) Not the heaviest band of the day, this is a bouncy dance party, and one we’re so glad we witnessed it. We’ll be looking forward to seeing these guys in a club on their next tour.
The Bad:
• Too many bands, too many stages. 42 bands on 4 stages. We’re not in the math leagues here at Up The Punx, but you’re going to miss at least half the bands you want to see. It’s a logistical nightmare involving graphs and maps, but we made the most of our time.
• Hot as hell with pretty much zero shade.
• Sound issues on the main stage made the Misfits sound like a bootleg mp3 cd off limewire being played in the car next to you. And Glenn? Let’s just say his rants were more off-key than his vocals. Glenn’s “fake pandemic” spiel. We lived through it, we all have grievances, sure, but call it “the longest two weeks ever”, call it “abuse of power”, call it “a horrible fucking time”, but “fake” was some MAGA get off my lawn shit. The crowd was a collective groan, not the hoots and hollers i believe Glenn was expecting. He followed it up with “I had to spit on somebody, that’s not illegal is it?” You’re sixty eight Glen, just sing Hatebreeders and get back in your Jaguar.
In conclusion, No Values Festival was an epic pilgrimage to the holy land of punk. It wasn’t perfect, but it was fun as fuck, and isn’t that what it’s all about? We had the originators of the genre, we had up and comers – there was something for everybody. We see room for improvement, but we’ll also see you in the pit next year.
All Words & Pics by Alex Napiwocki
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