For better and for worse, California punk kings NOFX do their best to live up to what they perceive as the "punk ethic." They do as they please, and everyone else be damned. They've sold millions of albums with virtually no radio airplay and without any support from MTV (at the band's own request). Their repertoire spans the 10-second hardcore bleat "Fuck the Kids" and the 18-minute sociopolitical critique "The Decline," with detours into thrash, ska, reggae, jazz and even opera. Singer/bassist Fat Mike runs the successful indie label Fat Wreck Chords when he's not penning political diatribes or potty-mouthed salutes to lesbian love. As one might expect from such a mercurial band, live performances can be a hit-or-miss affair - a point underscored by NOFX's aptly titled live record, I Heard They SUCK Live! Fortunately for a reverent D.C. crowd, NOFX's recent show at the Nation displayed the band at its best.
After energetic opening sets by Australian pop-punk band Frenzal Rhomb and SoCal ska-punkers the Mad Caddies, NOFX took the stage to rapturous applause from the sold-out house. Although the band's 25-song set reflected its range of topical concerns, Fat Mike's T-shirt - a black-and-white portrait of George W. Bush with a swastika on his forehead and the slogan NOT MY PRESIDENT - mirrored a distinct political slant to the set list. The band even treated the D.C. fans to a rare chunk of "The Decline" - which has never been performed live in its entirety - and debuted a brand new song, "Idiot Son of an Asshole," inviting the audience to sing along on the Bush-baiting chorus.
Devotees of NOFX's lighter material also came away satisfied. A jazzy cover of Minor Threat's hardcore anthem "Straight Edge" - sung by guitarist/trumpeter El Hefe and dedicated to its author, D.C. scene legend Ian MacKaye - was nicely juxtaposed against a punked-out version of the jazz standard "All of Me." (The set's other cover, Rancid's "Olympia, WA.," also appears on a new split CD on BYO Records, on which NOFX and Rancid cover six of each other's songs. Fans of either band should find it well worth picking up, assuming they haven't already.)
Longtime crowd favorites like "Bob" and "The Brews" mingled nicely with newer songs like "Dinosaurs Will Die" and "Hotdog in a Hallway" (a paean to overweight women, dedicated by Fat Mike to "my first girlfriend, and my second girlfriend, and my third girlfriend."). The band mercifully kept between-song banter - a primary weakness of their live album, aped by Blink-182 and lesser imitators - to a minimum, resulting in breathless set pacing which better suited the frenetic music. Even the riotous finale, "Theme from a NOFX Album," a self-referential polka-punk blast which also closes out 2000's Pump Up the Valuum album, couldn't satisfy the crowd; in lieu of an encore, guitarist/accordionist Eric Melvin attempted to pacify the cheering, stomping masses by repeatedly ambling onstage with his accordion, being lassoed by a stagehand and led off, then retaking the stage, all the while playing the song's simple accordion hook. It was a nice gesture, a reminder that, in spite of the band's self-satisfied exterior and "fuck the kids" rhetoric, NOFX can still give the fans what they want.
NOFX's next release, a double CD of rarities and compilation tracks entitled 45 or 46 Songs That Weren't Good Enough to Go On Our Other Records (really), will be out in May on Fat Wreck Chords.
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