As noted, we only have so much time. Frankly, I’m pretty please to say I saw about one-sixth of the bands, all things considered.
So, to get the full story, we asked a few more bands to share their own stories from FEST 21.
Noelle (Shehehe)
Fest is such an impossible animal to tame. You can never do everything you want to do or spend as much time with everyone as you want to. I found myself reflecting on my Fest experience this year and feeling like the main takeaway for me was just getting time with new friends and being able to make future plans with them because of the flashpoint Fest provides. It's Shehehe's 5th year playing and I still am blown away by the fact that people come to see us play and I don't even know some of them! Smoking Popes was probably the magical moment for me personally. I had split from the rest of the band to hang with a group of new but somehow immediately dear friends, then the rest of the band found us and we all sang their last song, “I Know You Love Me” at the top of our lungs, in a way that felt like we were singing those words to each other, and singing that at each other became a theme for the rest of the weekend. It can be easy to forget how special music is and how special the friends you make because of it are. I always feel softer and my load feels lighter after this annual respite from real life, and in awe of the talented people I am lucky enough to know.
Greg (Celebration Summer)
Quick story ive told a couple times this wkd because @thefestfl is so important to me and a critical piece of the history of #celebrationsummer .
My wife and I came to our 1st fest ( #fest17) in 2018, just before my 42nd birthday. The experience was transformative. Having been involved in and around the punk rock scene since my 1st club show in 1991 (or 92? Fyi it was #farside at the old 8 1/2 Club in Fullerton CA), I never had the guts to actually make music. We returned home (just outside DC) and I said to her, "I'm going to buy a bass tomorrow, learn how to play, start a band, and one day play #thefestfl ."
Celebration Summer started in late 2019 and we played our first Fest at #fest20 last year. An absolutely amazing journey in just 5 short years. It still seems like a dream. And here we are again at #fest21 where we played one of my favorite Gainesville venues @looseyspub to a packed crowd on the 1st evening of then 3-day event.
It was our last show with our original drummer @gboysko and what a send-off it was. Lots of new stuff in the works this year (a new record perhaps??TBD) and we hope to see all our #festfriends again next year!
Josh Jurk (School Drugs)
My buddy Adam from the band Omnigone asked me to sing a song with them a few months ago. I spent all of Saturday night learning and memorizing the Omnigone song that he told me we were going to be doing. Sunday at High Dive, the final block of their set comes and Adam calls me up on stage. He cues the band, a riff starts and confusion sets in as I realize I've been ambushed with my own band's song, “Modern Medicine.” I'd be mad about it if the ska part they added didn't slap so damn hard.
Alex Dunne (Crime in Stereo)
WOLF-FACE. Crime in Stereo lives for Wolf-Face. As soon as we find out we're playing Fest, we check the schedule for Wolf-Face's set time. A fantastic punk band in their own right, Wolf-Face has become legendary for their cover sets at Fest. Two years ago we stumbled into the back patio area of a bowling alley at 1am to discover a five-piece absolutely tearing through a set of perfectly replicated Minor Threat tunes, all costumed as 1985-era Teen Wolf. Knee-high tube socks, maize Beavers basketball unis, rainbow sweatbands, and of course, Wolf Faces. This year's set, however, blew our minds. Refused is one of our absolute all-time favorite bands, a band we've seen many times, and I don't know if they've ever performed their own songs as tight as this. The riffs, the screams, the samples. Wolf-Face was flawless. You couldn't move in the venue, people were hanging off the upstairs balconies just to catch a glimpse of this perfect lycanthrope cosplay punk band. The great spirits proclaim that Wolf-Face is, indeed, organized crime...and we are all the victims.
Jaguero
During the traditional FEST 21’s Canadian Purge , Andrea and Guido went for an extremely short acoustic set, covering “Sk8ter Boy” and “Basket Case,” improvising. It was super fun but thank god everybody was drunk and there’s no proof of that.
Chase D. Spruiell (Big Loser)
I’ve seen Against Me! probably 25 times spanning from 2004 to now. I even saw Laura’s first acoustic performance as Tom Gabel, prior to her first solo release under that name. From afar, I’ve witnessed her journey, and her growth as an individual, songwriter, and musician. When I watched her performance at Fest this year, in a packed house, after receiving the key to the city where it all started for her, the roar of fans singing along to a decades-long discography, there was a sense of things coming full circle, and I felt connected to that. I may or may not have bawled my eyes out. 10/10.
Eric Button (Dollar Signs)
We ventured down to Fest again this year and had a good time like always. After 9 years of going (7 years of playing) I'm always on the hunt for a good mix of the familiar and the new. Fortunately my wife does a lot of listening to the Fest Spotify playlist and gives me a lot of recommendations and there were a few standouts. Eat Defeat was a standout from that playlist and their Loosey's set was so fun ,even though I had to sit down because I'm elderly. Sometimes you come across a band that you can tell just have so much fun on stage and they checked that box big time. Speaking of fun, the best set of Fest has to be the Japanese ska outfit Free Kick for me. That was one of the most intensely fun sets I've seen in my 200 years of going to Fest. Fast and fun they brought out all the stops and I could watch their trumpet player dance on stage forever. If Free Kick comes back to America I will be forced to see them. Check' em out! Also I yelled a lot during Laura Jane Grace's Vivid Music Hall set. So cool to see her play all those old Against Me! songs after receiving the key to the city even though the people standing beside us dropped no less than 6 beers during her 1 hour set. Get it together, ya'll, we're all in our 30s now!
John (New Junk City)
Fest was very sweet to New Junk City this year. We got to see so many buds from all over the world, and are incredibly grateful to anyone who came to see us play, and for the fact that we get to keep coming back. It’s the best weekend of the year, every year. Already looking forward to FEST 22!
