Forty bands took the stage behind Palmer’s Bar from July 26 to July 28 as the West Bank dive bar sought to recreate the magic of Woodstock ‘99.
On Sunday, a crowd of mostly gray-haired punks covered in tattoos gathered around a small stage behind Palmer’s next to Riverside Plaza. Performers constantly weaved in and out of the crowd, hauling their instruments and equipment to and from the stage.
When I arrived between sets on Sunday, I was greeted by a bouncer who spoke little and would fit in with the crowd at a Hells Angels clubhouse. The cover charge was $10 and tickets were first come, first served, in true underground fashion.
A menu printed on yellow paper proudly displayed some of the cheapest beer prices I have ever seen near campus, although they would still seem wildly overpriced in comparison to any rural dive bar. The bar also served pizza, but either no one was hungry or no one dared to try it. Probably the latter.
As I navigated my way through a crowd of people who looked like my parents, if my parents were way too into punk rock, I settled down near a small group of people covered in American-traditional tattoos to watch the show. From the corner of my eye, I spotted a bald, sweaty man with a long gray beard watching the show alone from the rooftop.
While I tried to figure out how or why he was up there, a group of older men who shared the same physique as my father got on stage and plugged in their instruments. Not a single colored follicle of hair existed between the four of them.
The guitar player, sporting an awe-inspiring gray, handlebar mustache, churned out a feedback-laden power chord that reverberated through my skeleton, and then Vacant’s performance was underway.
Draped in a Hawaiian shirt straight out of the late and great Jimmy Buffett’s closet, the lead singer screamed indecipherable lyrics as the band pumped out pure, unadulterated punk rock noise.
Unfortunately, the bass did not cut through the mix, as is typical in punk rock, but I could tell by the bass player’s wild stage presence that he was rocking hard.
During the show, I noticed a man covered in fake blood wearing sunglasses, a leather harness, a bedazzled leather jockstrap, wrestling boots and nothing else while dragging a life-sized dummy behind the stage. After Vacant’s set, he took the stage, joined by a shirtless guitar player in a pig mask and a towering bassist sporting a Hawaiian shirt full of sharks and a pink cowboy hat that said “Sassy.”
Led by the man in the leather harness, the band Murf put on a similarly noisy show, with a few more theatrics. The lead singer threw the human dummy into the crowd, put on a knit ski mask, covered himself in even more fake blood and joined the mosh pit a few times.
After the show, the leather-clad lead singer changed into his street clothes and would have been completely unrecognizable amongst the crowd of people with Rat Fink tattoos had it not been for the few spots of fake blood on his neck that gave him away.
Rain threatened to move the final shows onto the small stage of the cramped bar, but after a brief period of uncertainty, the Houstonian punk band Daikaiju took the stage outdoors.
Completely silent, the band wore Kabuki masks for the entirety of their set, only removing them briefly to drink beers and smoke joints handed to them by the crowd. Naturally, the band’s set consisted of raw punk noise and flamboyant theatrics accentuated by their mime-like stage presence.
At one point during their show, the members of Daikaiju moved their instruments into the crowd as members took turns playing droning riffs to keep the crowd going as they transitioned their set into the mess of people gathered around the stage.
Towards the end of their set, the drummer stood up, poured lighter fluid on one of his cymbals and set it on fire as a crowd member played it. Normally, I would be terrified of this fire stunt going horribly wrong, but I was surprisingly calm because it was clear this was not their first rodeo.
Heart pounding and ears ringing, I left PALMFEST 2024 excited to return next year.