Rockfest Friday recap (Weezer, Brand New, RFTC, Black Flag, etc.)

All photos by Gabe Sigler.

This year’s sold-out edition of Rockfest, which ran from June 20-21 in Montebello, Quebec was a juggernaut in nearly every way. The bands were way bigger, including arena acts like Motley Crue, Megadeth and Weezer, and the crowds were massive, with festival organizers stating that 200,000 people walked through the gates during the festival’s 2 days (they must be counting re-entries, but the number is huge either way).

The tiny Quebec town of Montebello (population: 1,000) was completely overrun with tens of thousands of wasted metal-heads and punks, wandering through the town’s (one) downtown drag, drinking, shouting, parking, and passing out on any scrap of land they could find. I spotted a couple of police throughout the day, but otherwise it was about as close to pure anarchy as I have ever seen (that honour is still held by last year’s chaotic edition of the fest). However, the residents of Montebello seemed to take all the craziness in stride, selling snacks and drinks from their front porches, and renting out any slice of land they had for camping and parking, proving that capitalism conquers all societal and cultural barriers.

Friday’s lineup was definitely the strongest of the festival, with a stacked bill of bands playing on a half dozen stages straight through the day, and well into the night. Given the overlap between stages, I elected to try and catch as many sets as possible, which often meant only being able to see 15-20 mins of most bands, but such are the dilemmas of a festival this size.

The Gaslight Anthem had a respectfully large turnout for their early-afternoon set. The New Jersey natives are used to commanding the attention of large audiences these days, and delivered a tight set of favourites from their last few full lengths. They didn’t play anything off of their upcoming Get Hurt LP, but we should have a chance to hear some new songs when they return to Montreal in the Fall.

Ska/punk/funk pioneers Fishbone were up next, and delivered a typically rousing set. Frontman Angelo Moore is one of the most charismatic and watchable performers in any genre, and led the band (and the crowd) into a hot sweaty mess in no time.

Melodic-hardcore vets H20 were one of the unannounced cancellations last year, so it was great to see them actually present. This was the set that every other band seemed to be watching from the sidelines, including Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker, who joined the band on drums for “Guilty By Association,” definitely an early-afternoon highlight.

The crowds for NOFX were so large that I ended up watching their set way back from the rooftop of the media center, located what felt like a solid kilometre from the stage (that’s the bird’s eye view at the top of this post). It’s hard to gauge numbers from a distance, but I would wager that they had the biggest crowd of the day. As usual, Fat Mike’s snarky banter was the highlight of the set, as he ripped on Motley Crue, and lambasted Rivers Cuomo for not watching their set.

Chicago’s reunited 88 Fingers Louie drew a huge crowd to their side-stage set, with security nearly overwhelmed by crowd surfers within minutes of the band taking the stage. The band were short on gimmicks, and plowed through their anthemic catalogue in breakneck fashion. Here’s hoping we get some new material from the band soon.

Someone in the scheduling department at Rockfest either has a masochistic streak, or simply thought it would be amusing to line up Long Island’s Taking Back Sunday and Brand New back-to-back on the same stage. The bands have a number of long-standing rivalries (still?) stewing, but the crowd ate up having the two late-90’s emo vets on in such proximiy to each other.

Live the bands could hardly be more different. Taking Back Sunday’s frontman Adam Lazzara is as over-the-top as they come, sashaying across the stage and whipping his microphone chord through the air before letting it wrap tightly around his throat, while Brand New were nearly stoic in comparison, seemingly content to led the songs speak for themselves. Given my inherent distaste in rock star histrionics, and that sonically Brand New are simply a more interesting band, I’ll give Brand New the edge here, but both bands drew some of the most devoted (and loudest) crowds I saw all day.

Truth be told, I didn’t catch too much of Megadeth. We were all unceremoniously kicked out of the photo pit during the first song, and given the size of the crowd at that point, I cut my losses and headed back to the side-stage area to catch the remainder of Alkaline Trio’s set.

Alkaline Trio are always a bit of a hit or miss live, and what I caught of their set unfortunately leaned more towards the latter. Maybe it was that I happened to stumble over just as they began a block of newer material, but the band seemed to be going through the motions for the most part. “Radio” as a finale is always a sure bet though, and catching Judge’s Porcell singing along was a pretty great sight.

As a full-on Weezer apologist, I was realy looking forward to their set, which unfortunately fell into their rather lazy “festival mode” show, which featured a slew of hits, but not a single song off of Pinkerton. At least Rivers is stationary behind the mic with his guitar now, that strange era of him running through the crowd with a cordless mic and jumping on trampolines mid-set seemingly (hopefully) in the past. You can check out our full review and photos of Weezer’s set over here.

New York hardcore legends Judge did the best they could on a stage with a 5-foot wide barricade, which dampened the excitement level considerably. They still delivered a tight set of classic, angst-ridden NYHC, but frontman Mike Judge seemed resigned to the fact that he wouldn’t be swarmed with stage-divers like he would at a normal gig.

Rocket From the Crypt are simply one of the best live bands on earth, and while this wasn’t the greatest set I’ve seen them play, a decent RFTC show is still something to marvel at. Opening with the ridiculous salvo of “Middle” / “Born in ’69” / “On a Rope,” the band delivered a driving set of anthemic rock n’ roll to a small but entranced crowd. Frontman John Reis’ banter was possibly the highlight of the show, regaling the crowd with gloriously inaccurate facts about the band and the city of Montebello. If people will put up with Henry Rollins ranting for hours, then Reis needs to embark on his own spoken word tour ASAP.

Speaking of Rollins, I capped the night off with what apparently constitutes “Black Flag” in 2014. Now fronted by pro skater Mike Valley, the only reason to see this incarnation of the band is to see guitarist Greg Ginn in action. As much as people rave about Flag, (the “other” Black Flag currently touring) there is definitely something great about seeing Ginn pull off those timeless riffs in person, with a goofy grin that makes it all look so effortless. I’m not really sold on Mike Valley as a singer, but he was definitely putting his all into the show, and the crowd seemed to eat it up (although they also went crazy for The Misfits earlier, so there’s that).

Overall, this year’s edition was a marked improvement over last year’s anarchic mess. Everything seemed to run smoothly, with no apparent hold ups at the main entrances, no last-minute cancellations, and most importantly, no detectable port-o-potty issues. It will be interesting to see where the festival grows from here, given how huge it is now, compared to how small and constricting the surrounding town is. Perhaps the festival organizers can offer some etiquette tips to attendees next year (“Don’t belch in people’s faces,” “Don’t remove your shirt under any circumstances,”) but in the meantime, if the fest keeps booking lineups like this, I’ll be making the annual schlepp to Montebello for a while to come.

Scroll down for some additional photos from Rockfest.

88 Fingers Louie

Taking Back Sunday

Brand New

Megadeth

Alkaline Trio

Rocket From the Crypt

Judge

Black Flag