Punk Rock Summer Camp

What's up, fellow aging rock-and-rollers.

I don't mean to brag or nothin', but, back in the day, I used to be pretty cool.

Seriously.  I know, it amazes me, too.

This now-lame, out of shape, white-sideburn'd middle school history teacher who wears a tie to work and obsesses over his yard used to be a spiky-haired punk rock aficionado who played drums in multiple bands, wore questionable clothing, snubbed his nose at authority, didn't pay his bills, and drove way too fast in his sticker-riddled '93 Dodge Shadow.

What the hell happened to me?

Well, I got old.  And I progressively got less and less cool.  I still listen to the same music I did in my 20s (for the most part), and still like to think that I've retained some small degree of my former awesomeness over the years, but I'm a faint shadow of my former self.  I don't play in bands anymore, and a 'crazy night' for me is staying up until 1am, after my wife and kids go to bed, and watching whatever the hell I want to on Netflix.  On Friday and Saturdays, that is - not on weeknights.  My alarm goes off at 5:30am on weekdays.

Punk.  Rock.

This week, however, Cool Brian got to dust off his punk rock credentials and pretend to be awesome again, and it was f***ing incredible.

My good friend, Mr. Jon Kimmel - a buddy of mine from high school and college, and who played bass in my not-at-all-legendary high school band, Jeff's Left Front Pocket, invited me to check out a concert that was going to be taking place in Chicago on August 8th (a beautiful day, honestly.)  It was the latest stop in From Boston to Berkeley tour, and featured some of our favorite punk rock bands from our younger, far more-cooler years:  The Bouncing Souls, Dropkick Murphys, and - one of my two all-time favorite bands - Rancid.

You bet your ass I was on board with this.

Our buddy BP also threw on his adventuring pants for this venture, and we quickly hatched out a plan for the trip.  I would drive down to Grand Rapids from Midland the night before the concert, and stay the night at BP's place.  In the morning, we would set off for Chicago and head straight for Kimmel's apartment.  We'd spend the day following him around to different breweries and watering holes, then, when his wife Kat got out of work, we would all head out to the concert venue - the Huntington Pavilion, on Lake Michigan - and after the show, she'd drive us home.

By the end of the trip, I was sore, sweaty, and covered in bruises and scrapes, but it was totally worth it.  As it turns out, I can still hold on my own in a punk rock mosh pit, and only one guy in the pit asked me if I was a cop (though, to my credit, he was a young kid and three sheets to the wind - so of course all us old dudes are questionable at that point.)

So, what follows is a brief pictorial telling of how our Punk Rock Summer Camp went down (note: while we were standing right behind many of the band photographers who snapped some of these pics - we got ridiculously close to the stage - I nabbed these online, they're not mine.  Full credit to the folks who took 'em.)

See ya in the Pit. . .

BP said that Tuesday was Taco Tuesday at his house (good to see his family observes the Sabbath like our family does), but unlike the basic browned-meat with taco-seasoning, shredded cheese, sour cream, lettuce and tomato fare that my family partakes in, BP's spread was far more elaborate.  Grilled pork, homemade pico de gallo, grilled shells, homemade guac, etc.  I might have to start celebrating Taco Tuesday in Grand Rapids from now on.

Paired with this, which was really good with tacos.  Es bueno.

After dinner we drove out to a party store to pick up some craft beers for the evening, and I picked up this lil' treasure (really good.)

Wouldn't be an evening with lil' Beepers without some Tolkien. . .

Thug life.

The next morning, following breakfast and showers, we set off for Chicago. . .

Indiana gets slightly more Punk Rock and we cross the state line.

Indiana was terrible. Congestion, semi trucks, construction, more semi trucks.  Still not nearly as bad as Ohio, but we were pretty glad to be out of there.

Come on, feel the Illinoise.

Entering Chicago (as evident from the subway platforms (or whatever the hell they are) on the side of the expressway.

Closing in on Kimmel's location.

The Windy City

I hate Ferris Wheels.

The infamous Kimmel.  Still in his pajamas.

He lives in an apartment building that's like five or six stories high, with apparently one apartment per floor.  He's right in the city, though, so it's pretty convenient.

That's gotta suck moving in/out of this place.

Kimmel and his wife own cats, which BP and I are both deathly allergic to.  In preparation for our arrival, he deep-cleaned his whole house and keep sleeping bags air-drying outside for us.  This ultimately worked, 'cause neither of us had a reaction after staying the night there.

Kimmel shows off his balcony garden

Some 'Welcome to Chicago' libations.

Kimmel owns a couple growlers.

HIGH SCHOOL, ASSEMBLED

I'm not big on Porters (more of a Stout guy, myself), but this was pretty good.

Definitely didn't look like it from the street, but Kimmel's apartment is enormous.

Their dining room, where BP and I would be sleeping on a couple cots.

My old fish tank, which I brought from the Meijer in Mt. Pleasant back in 1994.  I gave it to Kimmel when we lived together back in college, at Jefferson St., back in 2002.  Can't believe he still has this thing.

Prepping for the evening's festivities with some punk music videos off YouTube. . .

Setting out for a Kimmel-led walking tour of Chicago. . .

(This is probably the dumbest courtyard in all of Chicago.)

Some trippy mural

Checking out Lake Michigan

En route to the first brewery

Outside the brewery

Forgot the name of the place, but the beer was decent.

After the brewery, Kimmel wanted to stop and buy some smokes before we jumped on the Subway to go across town (the dude behind him doesn't look impressed.)

Buying fares.

Waiting for the train, Kimmel in his natural environment.

After a twenty-minute train ride, we disembarked and made our way towards another brewery (where we planned to meet up with Kimmel's wife, Kat.)

Dinner was decent, but I probably should've ordered something less spicy (I had some kind of a chicken sandwich that gave me heartburn for the rest of the evening.)

The concert venue was only a few blocks away, so we were ale to get over there pretty fast.

We arrived a little late, so we completely missed out on the opening act - an acoustic set from the singer of late 70s punk legends Stiff Little Fingers.

The Bouncing Souls.  We missed their first two songs, but I've seen them six or seven times before so I wasn't too worried.

Fortunately we weren't the oldest people there - these bands are all pushing 50 now.

The crowds were pretty thin for the first two acts, because we were able to get really close to the stage - maybe 10-12 feet from the singer of the Souls, directly behind the photographers, maybe one room back from the front.  There was about 15 minutes between bands, and we were all expecting the Dropkick Murphys to go on next (while they're a pretty big name in punk music, they're not nearly as famous as Rancid), but it turns out that Murphys albums apparentely are selling more than Rancid albums these days, 'cause Rancid ended up going on after the Bouncing Souls.  To put that in perspective, that's like the Rolling Stones opening up for the frickin' Monkees.

Aside from The Who, my all-time favorite band, whom I've had the pleasure of seeing about a dozen times before.   They played better than I expected them to - tight, high-energy, and their set list dug into deep album cuts they usually don't play.  I love it when bands do that.

This is about how close we were, and is pretty close to the right vantage, too:  we were standing directly in front of Lars Frederickson (in the white shirt), whom I had the pleasure of meeting once (he sold me his Zippo for $14 one time in 2001.) 

Tim Armstrong, who has provided me with the soundtrack of my everyday life for about twenty-five years now.

Rancid's crowd was huge, and we were so close that we were crushed near the front barricade against the stage throughout the duration of their set.  As is customary, a pit - a pretty big one - broke out right behind us, so several times I was sucked back into it and had to literally fight my way forwards through the jostling, punching, kicking, shoving, and body-surfing in order to get back to my original position.  I was drenched in sweat, my back hurt, I temporarily lost a shoe, BP was separated from us almost immediately, and I had a girl fall on top of me while crowd surfing, but it'll go down as one of my all-time favorite sets from any band.

By the time the Murphys came on, we were all too tired to go through the Pit again (I'm old).  Plus, the whole over-production of the Murphys' stage was a bit ridiculous.  Rancid played with a stationary image (the cover of their latest album), while these guys had videos streaming continuously in the background.  To make matters worse, their set list was garbage - mostly stuff from their latest four or five albums, which sucks compared to their first three (they only played a medley from the first two, which was a let-down.)  Had Kimmel not reentered the crowd for a closer look, the rest of us would have pushed to leave early and beat the crowds.

For an encore, Rancid came out on stage and joined the Murphys for a rendition of the Ramone's "Cretin Hop," Sham 69's "If the Kids are United," The Clash's version of "I Fought the Law," and - I'm not joking, here - Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues."  We didn't venture into the crowd for these closing numbers, but instead listened to them as we made our way through the exiting crowds.

Apparentely, as we were leaving, two people got stabbed and the cops were called in - we walked by a lot of commotion as we started our long, looooong trek back towards the Kimmels' car.  It would've been a nice, Summer evening walk, had our bodies not been throbbing with pain and soaked with sweat - we all were ready for beds by that point in time, so the leisurely stroll felt more like a forced march.

After crashing hard the night before, we all awoke the next morning, put on clean clothes and slowly began getting around for a late-morning meal.  Kimmel had told me of a Ghanaian restaurant a few miles away, so I was chomping at the bit to eat Fufu again.

Kimmel's neighborhood.

BP pays the parking meter.

Pretty typical name for a Ghanaian restaurant, if I do say so myself.

After waiting twelve years, I FINALLY got to partake in my all-time favorite Ghanaian meal:  Fufu with groundnut soup, with goat meat.  The only thing that was lacking was Ghanaian beer (they didn't serve beer), so I settled for another Ghanaian staple, Malta.

After that delicious start to our day (I could barely eat half - Peace Corps Brian would be deeply disappointed), we said our goodbyes to the Kimmels and hit the road.

Some scenery on our way out. . .

Damn it. . . back to Indiana.

After every stop in the Boston to Berkeley tour, the lead singer of the Bouncing Souls paints a picture to commemorate the evening's show.  He uploaded this image after the Chicago show, which will definitely go down as one of my favorites.  It was awesome to relive my early 20s with two of my best friends, if only for a fleeting moment amidst a see of otherwise lame-adulthood.  Good to know I've still got a small degree of coolness left in me.

- Brian