NOFX are one of those bands that anyone growing up with even
the slightest interest in punk music in the 90s and 2000s will have at least a
passing acquaintance with. As forerunners of the melodic punk breakthrough
which would see many bands become household names they’ve never strayed far
from the prunes-through-a-pensioner fast riffs and obnoxious teenage humour which
endeared a generation of skateboarders and BMX-ers to their early records. Even
a post-Bush turn towards leftist politics, which can seem odd so late in a band’s
career, is tempered by a wry acknowledgement of the unlikelihood of this change
in theme. Having not seen them since 2004 I decided it was time to catch up and
determine whether they still sucked live and so, reeling from smuggled goon and
after some ticket loss based drama, we headed down to the Academy in Leeds just
in time to catch most of Snuff. Despite missing Abrasive Wheels and Margate,
London’s finest did not disappoint; in my opinion there’s no better band within
the genre, fast and funny punk rock sprinkled with cover choices both
ridiculous and sublime and a line of banter which would be picked up by NOFX
revolving around riling up the people of Yorkshire…class. My only bone to pick
(and this may be because we turned up late and they opened with it) is that I’ve
seen them twice this year, and still not heard ‘Whatever Happened to the Likely
Lads’. A small complaint though, generally a stellar fucking performance which
got everyone in the room hyped for the night.
After a short wait,
and some general tooth-gritting at the price of a pint NOFX emerged to great
uproar, and a frankly hilarious amount of devil horn mosher salutes. I can
safely say that this particular hand gesture, when performed by a skinny middle
aged man in a brown camo vest, could have had Ian Curtis giggling like a child.
However, my judgemental cuntishness is unimportant; your reading this because
you want to know if they were any good…and they were. Maybe not as good as my
rose tinted nostalgia tells me the 2004 show was – but that’s coming from
someone who hasn’t liked much of their output after ‘So Long and Thanks for All
the Shoes’. As such the amount of newish
material was a little off putting for me, despite some undeniably good picks
from recent years including ‘Dinosaurs Will Die’ and ‘The Separation of Church
and Skate’. I was in the minority here however, and am probably just being a
dick as everyone else grinned and shouted along to every word. The abuse
directed at the crowd was relentless, including Fat Mike’s slightly nervous
re-telling of a story about ‘some creepy guy’ offering him half a bag of MDMA,
and some undeniable classics such as ‘The Brews’, ‘Leave it Alone’ and ‘Liza
and Louise’ were thrown in amongst the more recent material. Another particular
highlight was the band’s reggae-style reworking of ‘Radio’ by Rancid, absolute
genius. If the rest of the tour was in any way like the Leeds leg, I think that
it can safely be considered a success. NOFX may have changed over the years,
but are still close enough to their snotty roots to make one of their shows
worth a visit, even by a jaded old bastard like me!
4/5
Jono
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