Punk In Drublic Review: A Fall Weekend Out West

A Punk In Drublic review, a Guided By Voices review, and a lot of fun in between. It was a wild weekend in Western Mass.

I hit the road after my show on Friday afternoon and made my way west to Holyoke. That's the home of Gateway City Arts and Race Street Live. Loved the artsy vibe in the old mill building on the Second Level Canal, loved the old-school vibe of the actual venue. It reminded me of the all-ages shows I used to hit up at Elks Clubs and VFW Halls back in the day, just with a killer bar. And Dayton, Ohio's own Guided By Voices were a blast, per usual. They're one of my all-time favorite bands and even though frontman Robert Pollard is closing in on 65, the band still played their standard three-hour set. Champion dudes, all of them.

I left Holyoke for points northeast on Saturday morning, meeting up with a friend for a hike and the annual Pumpkin Festival in Ashby. There's perhaps no better time of year for hiking in New England than early autumn. Damon Pond in Willard Brook State Forest was picturesque and easy to knock around in. Highly recommended.

From West Townsend it was off to Worcester for the Punk In Drublic Craft Beer and Music Festival at the Palladium Outdoors. After bumming around downtown Worcester for a bit, I hit the festival, shelled out $10 for a Coors Light (which is decidedly not punk rock), and caught three sets. SoCal punk stalwarts Face To Face are my favorite punk band to come out of California in the '90s and they're still as good as ever. I saw Descendents for the first time ever and was absolutely blown away. Milo still has the energy of a teenager and Bill is a human dynamo behind the kit. And NOFX were in rare form; I think Fat Mike talked shit about his home state of Massachusetts for a solid 5 minutes before the band even played a note.

Killer weekend all-around. Pics below.