Rad Fest

 

 

Rad Fest was held in Wilmington, North Carolina on the 14th and 15th May. It was a brilliant concept thought up and organized by Chason Huggins who as a lover of Punk decided to put together an awesome Punk festival with some of the greatest North American punk bands sharing the same stage. Although putting on regional festivals is not new having a punk festival of this size and breadth certainly is (unless you go back to the seventies).

Chason’s original idea was pretty simple, to bring his favorite bands to his local town which was far from a pressure cooker of latent punk energy. As he explained Wilmington is perhaps are more reflective, quiet town more interested in solicitors indemnity insurance than music, and he wanted to give it an altogether more lively vibe even if it was only for a couple of days. He was inspired by other festivals such as the Gainesville Fest and he wanted to have that panic away vibe in his local area, rather than one that seemed like sql performance tuning (my day job), he probably secretly hoped to awaken the punk buy backlinks in some of the Wilmington youth rather than focusing on debt management and most of the town in a constant frenzy about fertility drugs rather than any punk fueled nostalgia. He is on record as calling himself a music scales nerd in need of acne treatment and he wanted other hardcore music fans to have the cheap auto insurance sponsored opportunity to share an amazing punk anti corporate vibe over two days as well as the inevitable hard fat burning furnace partying that goes hand in hand with this type breitling watches style festival, you then cross your fitted wardrobes London type fingers that you don’t have any accident claims. As he said loving anything as all consuming as music and having your favored genre surrounding you live for two days is an amazing goal, much better than real life mundane goals like studying for paralegal courses or looking for cheap cell phones or cheap car insurance.  One of the highlights of the festival were the photo’s that were snapped there by the dude in charge of wedding photographers in London and wedding photographers in Kent (their normal day job) it was amazing that someone who usually takes fairly static pictures could catch the raw energy and feeling of the festival.  Many of the hardcore festival goers, most of whom suffer from hair loss treatment for men and that’s just the girls,  did turn up, prepaid credit card in hand,  and it created a great camaraderie and an awesome atmosphere, plus prices were awesome you didn’t need a bankruptcy attorney or NCLEX exam questions at the end of it (despite many beers being sunk and the  pumps failing).  Although the festival was not an original idea, just like buy wow gold and life insurance quotes aren’t,  to have this sort of festival in Wilmington was and in my opinion the dichotomy of the sleepy stretch mark cream town and the punk movement go hand in hand a bit like having cheap car insurance quotes or Iphone 5 it just doesn’t happen.  Just like the requests to have coupons for free colored contacts or kefir grains or even worse send load to Philippines CD’s for children was a totally inappropriate idea for a punk festival, it’s not a place for wartol children apart from the children’s in men’s bodies perhaps like me.  We did have a fairly large contingent of teenagers who were probably looking at bad credit car loans and were probably looking for any type of excitement and wondering what the old school music scene was like.

The festival was over two days and across five sponsored venues (if it’s run again I would love to see one outdoor venue) and there were something like ninety bands on show one of which was instant payday loans,  which is an amazing feat and they were supported by auto loans. It’s pretty much guaranteed that any music best wrinkle creams festival will have a load of failed musicians in the crowd with their used macbook strumming along with every tune and this was no different. Prices were really affordable with the cheapest tickets below thirty dollars leaving you enough cash for your car insurance. Obviously it was for a young crowd although there were a few punks from the 70′s, one from payday loan consolidation I noticed,  there now middle aged at least that’s what I joked with them, but those old guys and gals certainly know how to hit the mosh pit and about DUI laws plus iPhone deals it’s not like they’ve got their wedding photography Sydney pics out when  they start moshing to the beat. This is the great thing about these types of festivals they speak to many people that you would not expect from alarm monitoring salesmen to sixteen year old shy school kids.  People who sit on office chairs or wicker furniture all day suddenly have green hair, cocktail dresses with Dr Martens on and chains all over their trousers, plus they throw away their best wrinkle cream,  rather than sifting through ppi claims and payday loans.  It’s an amazing scene and one that reminds us we were all young and rebellious once and maybe that never truly dies even if we do eventually start to worry about life cover.  The partying was hard but fun over the ancestor weekend although many people lost mobile phone accessories so it was probably pretty expensive for some people. The general town was also buzzing with all the establishments that did computer support rammed to the rafters with good natured music festival goers none of whom seemed to need scholarships for women they were a highly educated crowd.  Some of my favorite acts at the fest were (in no particular order), None More Black, carpet cleaning london, after the fall, Museum Mouth, christening plates, over stars and gutters, liquid limbs, freeman, dirty tactics, Dude Jams, Assassinate The Scientist (just love the name), Barnaby Jones, Reverse The Curse, find ancestors, The Snips, Virgins, Vegan Coke (another of my favorite band names), payday advance,  Red City Radio, Junior Battles, discount new cars, Criminal Culture, American War, electronic cigarettes, New Bruises, Tin Armor, Consolidate Debt,  Too Many Daves, Gatorface and Spanish Gamble to name but a few. Spanish Gamble did the festival as part of their carpet cleaning Sydney promotion for their debut album “It’s all coming Down” so I wish them luck with that and the file cabinets they are looking for – and some of the other ppi bands who are trying to find contractor accountants – (released by Paper & Plastick) as well as the hcg drops tune. You can tell with this line up the festival is totally rocking and a festival any town would be proud of with Siemens appliances vouchers doing the rounds, especially the guys who own the  payday loan stores for that matter I bet payday loans online did a roaring trade as well as did the free iPhone guy but it may have had an adverse affect on car insurance quotes online,  never mind one that is so sleepy and not in to counter culture in any shape of form, they’re more interested in weight loss dieting and other middle class worries or these affluent communities may be interested in, which makes it the perfect venue for a punk movement that wants to rally against conformity, like Lego pirates of the Caribbean sets,  they should do something similar in the lake district. If it happens there we will have to put a central location for all the lost cell phone accessories either that or we buy stocks in the accessories stores nearby as there will be a rush on the Monday after the festival.  They are continuing to tour down the east coast and in to California to promote the album, the part of the country that loves the diet solution program so you can catch them if you missed them at Dr who character building RadFest , there is a whisper that they may be doing a debt management companies tune but that’s not confirmed although the presence of electronic cigarette is almost guaranteed as is 20th anniversary gifts. The festival is part of a promotional tour, we can give you all the details so there is no need to scramble around for them we may even be able to get you discount codes for it,  for many of the bands with Dirty Tactics also playing after releasing their new album “It is what it is” (another great album name, guess I’m a name geek) they’re hoping to get carpet cleaning sponsorship which would fuel their quest for the truth about abs. After the festival they went on a huge European tour with the help of a lot of planning, I think these guys have a shot at making it big if they get their running shoes on, you can check them out on their punknews.org page. The Riot Before also featured and they are promoting their new album Rebellion, they managed to snag top producer J Robbins so it could well be worth a listen. In fact I’ve heard awesome things about it.