Halloween Weekend
The FEST
Gainesville, FL
Oct. 31 - Nov. 3, 2008
Arrived in Gainesville at 5 pm on Friday and caught a cab to the main hotel with two friendly strangers from San Francisco. Found Bryan and Aaron at the hotel and attacked them with hugs and waited in line forever with 4500 other punks to get a wristband. Met Bryan’s friend Avi and introduced myself to Todd Taylor.
Dragged Bryan and Avi out of the hotel and then saw Less Than Jake- never really liked them but they put on a good show. Bryan’s friend Max got us backstage for the Bouncing Souls, so we were five feet away from them during their set, where they dressed liked zombies and played only songs from 1995 and earlier. Max also hooked us up with a room at the main hotel for free over the weekend, we drank some beer and smashed pumpkins before walking to the hotel to pass at 3 am.
Saturday, we woke up at noon and checked out an art show before walking between venues all day to see The Measure, The Swellers, Scout’s Honor, The Matt Kurz One, and The Lawrence Arms. Finally saw Aaron and his friends again and everybody stayed at the Kickstand venue all night to see Shinobu play a great set, and the Star Fucking Hipsters and Bomb the Music Industry play somewhat disappointing ones.
Bryan was not ready to get into it on Sunday, so I hung out with some random punk guy from Minneapolis for a few hours before finding just the people I was looking for- Bryan’s friends Matt and Mike, plus Jeff who was really stoked on seeing the story I wrote about a BTMI show in a zine. Bands played on a couch in a store for local TV before we went to see Witches, then walk back to the hotel to get a sweatshirt.
Found Avi again, saw Off With Their Heads, The Ergs, and Leatherface, joined for a little while by Bryan. Hung out in a hotel room and Andrew Jackson Jihad played in a packed hotel room next door that somehow didn’t get busted by security. Went to sleep next to the coolest guy at four am.
Woke up at 8 am on Monday, said some goodbyes that I didn’t want to. Cleaned up a bit and had lunch with my Grandparents. Fell asleep on Bryan’s shoulder, got on the plane back to Houston. Got home at 1 am and reluctantly went back to real life 12 hours later.
Everybody was happy to welcome me back today even though my head's still in the clouds and I keep thinking about this awesome dude I met and if I'll ever see him again & about what I can do to make my regular life more like this past weekend and I am sure that the answer is moving away.