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My wife's birthday, who was cool enough to spend it doing something I wanted to do. Woke up and headed to a nearby cafe called Carrob's for a couple breakfast tacos while being entertained by a guitarist who seemed to mostly be singing about the going ons inside the restaurant. Had Migas for the first time, enjoyed it. Shortly afterwords, it started turning into gospel but luckily we were done by that point. Kinda glad I wore my Ghost shirt.

We then hoofed it another couple of blocks over to the free FFF shuttle, just missing the first run. Across the street from the highway, I'm pretty sure the shuttle pickup was located in the hobo toilet. A little smelly. And here's another reason I hate people, entitled assholes who just walked up cutting in front of everyone else who had been standing there in line for 20 minutes. Whatever.

Had to get our PIP tickets scanned, leading to the special PIP entrance being a bit of a cluster fuck especially since they had to try and do it on an iphone while standing in the sun. Got a beer and headed all the away across the park to the black stage.

Tia Carrera
Heavy instrumental metal. Not bad but not quite as heavy as Eagle Claw. A lil early in the morning to get into.

Burning Love
A friend tried to turn me onto these guys beforehand but I never really got around to it. My mistake because as soon as they were ready to start, the lead singer hopped down into the dirt field with the crowd, bringing mic stand and all to sing the first few songs. Intense. And fucking awesome. Later he would end the set swinging upside down from the stage scaffolding. Nice way to start the day.

Kvelertak
These guys are one of the reasons I signed up for FFF (luckily they didn't end up playing an OK show in between just to spite me.) I was stoked to catch them even though 2pm Friday seemed too early of a slot for their awesome mix of punk/death/viking metal rock and roll. What's also crazy is that the guitarist on the right didn't seem to be playing with a pick and was just strumming everything with his hand. I imagine these guys would destroy a packed small club with a full set. Picked up a shirt with the awesome cover art by John Baizley.

Torche (missed)
I wanted to see these guys but instead we had to head back across the park to make the PIP lunch cut off. Only to find out the first meal of the day was 'pizza rolls' (more accurately described as Pizza Dongs.) Not impressed at all, especially since it was mostly just a wad of dough that I missed Torche for. Vendor food seemed WAY more appealing and we would later end up waiting 30 minutes to get falafel from Kebabalicious for dinner.

Joe Sib
It was time to head over to the yellow stage for comedy and shade. WE saw punk rock comedian Joe Sib tell some cool stories and jokes. Kind of in the vein of Henry Rollins only a little less intense , more fonzi and less neck. Dug him a lot.

Kevin Seconds (Spoken Word)
Up next, Kevin Seconds did some spoken word, telling a couple stories one of which was alluding to being about the evil Elvis himself, Danzig and playing a show with him and Samhain back in the early 80s. Kevin Seconds was not impressed at all with his character and neither for that matter is the city of Austin, as we heard horror stories about Danzig more than a few times while there.

Chris Cubas
Austin local comedian Chris Cubas then came on and did a short set. Throughly enjoyed this guy, who's a bit bigger with crazy hair and beard, almost like some sort of deranged homeless person.

H Jon Benjamin
Coach McGuirk! Archer! H Jon Benjamin Has A Van! Not quite as funny as I would've hoped. After a few minutes by himself, he brought Nathan Fielder up and they did some 'improv' called Spend The Day where they brought a lady from the crowd up and inquired about how she had spent her day thus far and then renacted it.

Which then somehow turned into her uncle confronting her only to find out he raped her years ago. And then they switched roles and did it again. And then they brought more people up from the crowd to play the roles. Some of it was funny but not as super awesome as I was hoping.

Hannibal Buress
The yellow stage headliner for Friday. Made fun of crazy ass rap lyrics such as one about the nuances of having sex with a pregnant lady. Another fun set.

Converge/Tomahawk
It was now time to make the trek all the way back across the park. Naturally, the two stages we were camping were at opposite ends. Managed to get back to hear the last few Converge songs. Maybe it's just the contrarian nature in me or something but I just can't really get into these guys. Took a beer/piss break and listened to Tomahawk from the black PIP lounge. I like how Mike Patton finished the set with "Thank you, Tomahawk is up next."

Against Me!
Another band that sold me on the festival. After seeing front man Tom Gabel with the Revival Tour in March, I was eager to see him as newly transgendered frontwoman Laura Jane Grace. She did not disappoint.

Epic crowd sing alongs! Fucking loved "I Was A Teenage Anarchist", "Don't Lose Touch", "Pints Of Guiness Make You Strong" and "Walking Is Still Honest" as well as a couple of new songs. My only lament was that we were not closer (though still had a pretty good spot.) Can't wait for the new record and hope that one day they come to OK.

X
Day 1 Black Stage headliners, punk legends X playing their classic album Los Angeles in its entirety. We managed to get nearly up front on John Doe's side of the stage much to my wife's delight. Though Exene Cervenka's vocals were low in the mix starting off, the crowd had no trouble helping out. Good times and the only band we saw during the whole fest to come out and do an encore, glad we stuck around. It was also cool to see David Cross hanging on the back of the stage rocking out for most of it.

NITES at Beerland
Headed to Beerland to catch the stellar lineup of Joe Sib, Scott Reynolds (of ALL), Blag (of the Dwarves), Kepi Ghoulie (of the Groovie Ghoulies) and Kevin Seconds (of 7 Seconds) do acoustic sets with Joe Sib hosting. This was probably the most fun show of FFF. In a venue the size of a closet, we were right up front.

Scott Reynolds came on and did a great set interspersed with a good bit of story telling. He did a fucking great acoustic/lounge version of the Ramones "Blitzkrieg Bop" and the Misfits' "Astrozombies", a song he recorded last year as an 'apology' to the Danzig fans/crew who gave him death threats after he came out mockingly dressed as Danzig at Riot Fest last year. I also enjoyed his original material and have been hooked his album "Adventure Boy" since we got back.

Blag of the Dwarves was up next, singing raunchy songs on acoustic which was pretty hilarious. He kind of had a bubble around the stage as if nobody wanted to get too close. Some short drunk lady who was super into it kept grabbing my arm so I had to keep trying to scoot away, dunno if she couldn't tell the difference between me and her huge ass hulk of a boyfriend or what. I'm willing to bet she tried to get into Blag's pants afterwords as I didn't see her again thankfully.

Kepi Ghoulie next. Man. This guy knows how to put on a good show. The sticker we picked up afterwords says "Kepi Ghoulie Is Like Drinking 10 Lightnings" and that right there is some motherfucking truth. Formerly of Groovie Ghoulies, another excellent band, we haven't seen him since the last time we caught them, something like 5 or 6 years ago before they broke up. Kepi seems to be one of the most nice, fun loving people I've ever seen. He's always super into it.

Kevin Seconds rocked the drums while Kepi went through some GG songs and some of his solo material on the acoustic. Invited a kid up on stage to play the tambourine, which was cool. (Not really sure why a kid was in a 21+ bar but whatever. Felt bad for him because his parents were getting wasted and his dad was the kind of the drunk guy whos always like trying to get the bands attention.) I was kind of bummed I'd kind of stayed out of Kepi's solo material after the Ghoulies breakup because I wasn't sure how that went down (don't think I want to know either) so I couldn't sing along to a lot of it. Rest assured, that will soon be rectified.

Kevin Seconds. Not as familiar with him as I should be, seeing as how he works with some of my favorite artists. He came out and played both acoustic and electric and eventually brought his wife Allyson up to sing with them. Kepi sat in on drums. I feel like it's another warning sign that I'm getting old but this too was pretty damn fun and I think Kevin Seconds would be a great fit on the Revival Tour. (which I think maybe he was actually on in the past. I know last year him and Kepi did their own version of, so that would work too.)

Really bummed we couldn't make it back to town in time after Louis CK to catch these guys in OKC a couple weeks ago. His new album Don't Let Me Lose Ya which I just got as part of my Asian Man Record Club membership is great. See "Forever Try", "Only Drug" and "Oh Rhonda". Also see what is possibly one of the catchiest songs of all time, "Sunday Afternoon Bicycle Polo".

By the time they got done, it was time to sit the fuck down. We picked up a fat pile of merch, a LP and 2 7"s, art book, stickers and pins. And best of all, it came with a free hug from Kepi. And then a hike back up the hill to the hotel, ready to pass the fuck out.