In some ways, it was all the same. NOFX took the stage as “Time Warp” from the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack played over the speakers, technical issues and the occasional forgotten lyric forced some stutters and stalls throughout the band’s set, songs were punctuated by prolonged periods of banter and jokes onstage between members, pairs of shoes lost in the pit were hurled at the stage and accumulated just inside the barricade area while security hustled to catch crowd surfers floating over the rail. And in other ways, it was different. Friends and family circled the stage squeezing in tighter and tighter as the set carried on, the band broke from Final Tour habits and actually repeated a few songs that had been performed the during the previous nights’ shows, and much of the banter ended with quotes like, “that’s the last time we’ll ever play that song…”
Wrapping up the band’s Final Tour, dubbed the Punk In Drublic Festival, which started a year and a half ago, NOFX’s last shows consisted of three nights on the port in San Pedro, California. With a set list composed of nearly 35 songs each night, the band saved some of their most well known songs for the final night, along with performing a song called “We Did It Our Way“, which they announced would never be recorded or performed again, and was simply written as a thank you to the group’s friends and fans for the past 40 years.
There was no shortage of appreciation shown to the band over the course of the night. Pennywise, the final opening act, had brought out Fat Mike and Dexter Holland of the Offspring for an epic singalong version of their closing song, “Bro Hymn”. Throughout NOFX’s set, they were constantly shouting out other band members who joined them for their final show – members of No Use For A Name, Goldfinger, Rise Against, Bad Religion, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and countless others. During the group’s cover of Rancid’s song, “Radio”, the group brought out Tim Armstrong to sing the chorus. Giving a thank you to Bad Religion during the encore, NOFX invited Bad Religion members Brett Gurewitz and Jay Bentley to take up their instruments while the band played “We’re Only Gonna Die”. To close the set, the group performed their 20 minute opus “The Decline”, ending with over a dozen friends joining the group onstage over a bank of guitar amps to all play the closing outro.
Upon the show ending, the band gathered on a packed stage hugging friends and family, tearfully waving goodbye to the audience who just hung around taking it all in. Pennywise’s Fletcher Dragge spent a few minutes grabbing guitars from musicians onstage and smashing them on the monitors, while NOFX’s Eric “Smelly” Sandin heaved his drums off the riser and break upon the stage, a final moment of confirming the end.
The set was filled with songs ranging across the group’s albums. “Linoleum”, “Stickin’ In My Eye”, “Bottles To The Ground”, and “Bob” were played along with a handful of deep cuts like “She’s Gone”, “Reeko” and “Green Corn”. But more than anything, what was palpable was just the moment that everyone in the crowd shared. After the group’s two hour long set, the energy came to an end and a shared feeling of, after 40 years as a band, the possibility (or definitive if the band is to be believed…) of this being the final moment of NOFX performing live together settled over everyone like the Pacific fog encapsulating the hills of San Pedro in the distance.
If it’s actually the end, it happened just as it was assumed it would: with NOFX fucking up here and there, but giving an absolutely entertaining performance that left most people in attendance drenched in sweat and smiling.
