NOFX / Swingin' Utters / Epoxies

live in Nottingham (2004)

Matt Andrews

First up were the Epoxies, a band I knew to be synth-pop/punk, but had never heard. Their banner hanging above the NOFX one seemed to be made of gaffer tape stuck onto black plastic bags, but when they walked onstage, it lit up and looked pretty cool. The band were pretty energetic, and all had a similar style of clothes, with tape stuck in crosses all over their legs. It's kind of ironic that the most energetic member was the keyboard player, though. Their songs were pretty fun but similar, probably owing to the drummer only knowing one beat. Fat Mike could be seen watching from the side, raising a beer bottle in support. The singer did some cool yodelling (biggest oxymoron ever), and the bassist played around 4 notes the entire show.. this didn't do much to break their songs out of the same structure.

After they finished, the whole band stayed onstage to pack up their equipment, then set up for Swingin' Utters, the poor kids. The Utter's guitarists had some initial amp problems but these were eventually sorted and they got onstage. The audience got a little more excited (put it this way: they actually moved), especially when they played the song from the Tony Hawk game (I'm not an Utters fan so didn't know the name). They played pretty well, but weren't very exciting to watch, the singer only sang half his vocals, letting the guitarist sing the others, which made him look a little pointless. In the breakdown to one song, they had the crowd chant 'NOFX! NOFX!', which indicated that everyone was really here to see one band tonight.

After a stupidly long wait, the band finally made it onstage. They opened with Murder The Government. Predictably, the pit went insane, and the band were really tight. Mike spoke for a while about a lot of subjects, he asked the UK crowd what they thought of Bush (shirts for this tour were marked 'Rock Against Bush (and Blair) Tour 2004') and el Hefe was amazed to find some 14 year olds in attendance. The band then played some songs that weren't so popular, saying that when they play as many shows at they do, they have to play some shitty songs. Mike also said that they wouldn't play much from Heavy Petting Zoo, as it was their worst album. They played Green Corn, Perfect Government, and Falling In Love.

To much cheering they started playing The Brews, and afterwards Mike pointed out somebody on the front row who was stroking his chin all the way through, and compared him to a Weezer fan. Mike and Hefe told a story about how in Japan they gave the old bass player for Weezer (Mikey) mushrooms, and 2 weeks later he had been kicked out of the band and was in a mental institution. In between songs, everyone was shouting requests, mostly for Bob, although a kid next to me was yelling 'DECLINE!' every 20 seconds, somewhat vainly.

Trying to remember every song from a NOFX show (not to mention the order) is pretty difficult but the set basically consisted of:

Perfect Government
Murder The Government
Idiot Son of an Asshole
Bottles To The Ground
Falling In Love
Green Corn
Pimps and Hookers (called 'Pimps and Prostitutes' by Mike)
Linoleum
Franco Un-American (the keyboard player for the Epoxies played on this)
The Brews
What's The Matter With Parents Today?
The Seperation of Church and Skate (they fucked the intro up and had to start again)
Dinosaurs Will Die
Louise
Theme From A NOFX Album (they closed with this, and Eric Melvin played the accordion part over and over once everyone left the stage, and kept it going for about 10 minutes)
Kill All The White Man
Whoops I OD'd (this was played slightly differently with the whole band coming in straight away)
Bob
Stickin' In My Eye
Straight Edge (complete with Louis Armstrong style vocals courtesy of Hefe)

There were more, but I can't remember them. The band introduced the older songs talking about how they've forgotten how to play them, but still play really well despite their jokes. They put on a great show and everyone was enjoying it. They talked about how it had been 6 years since they played the venue last, and how last time it was full of old people. Mike spotted an old guy and commented about how it made him feel young.