You Rock, Drunk Bastards

By Neil G. Schloesser
Contributing Writer

NOFX played Fargo recently and holy cow can those drunk bastards rock, sort of, one song at a time. The humerous and politically charged punk band from California has been around for 27 years, so said Fat Mike their lead singer. It should be noted that he wasn’t fat, he was more of a wino and looks like Paulie from the Rocky movies.

After an hour-or-so wait for the openers to finish (an acoustic folk singer, of all things, and a melodious punk band that sounded awesome, but most bands sound good live so that isn’t really saying much) a small sign with NOFX was hung behind the drummer and the four guys walked out to loud applause.

NOFX’s thing is that they have really humorous, dry, sarcastic banter between each other and the crowd. They are liberal, hate organized religion, and love diversity. They commented on the lack of black people in the audience, said their band was more diverse than the whole state of North Dakota because El Jefe, their guitarist, is Mexican, and proclaimed the rainbow flag of the gay rights movement as North Dakota’s new flag because no one cared about our flag. The crowd ate this up. Even though the comments were false, they were tongue-in-cheek and had a bit of truth in them.

The music was a mixture of punk, ska, reggae, and good old-fashioned attitude. El Jefe also played a mean trumpet and his compositions combined with the bass work of Fat Mike and the rhythm guitar of Melvin made for some catchy and emotional songs. This band is not about anger, they are about humor, which is why, even when they advocate for government destruction, it isn’t as menacing as it sounds when coming from Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys.

The band doesn’t pretend to be professional. They forgot their lyrics a few times, and didn’t finish a song or two, but that was expected. They’ve been doing that for years and for some reason they make being unprepared funny and enduring. The audience is in on the joke, whatever the joke is. We get it even if we don’t fully understand what it is. These men are in their mid-forties, drinking and laughing their way across the country. I bet they’re laughing with us as much as they are at us. I would be too if I were them. They truly are a band with no special effects.

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If You Go

What: NOFX
Where: Sentrum Scene, Oslo, Norway
When: Fri, June 11
Info: 01147.2220.3232