MIKEY ERG: TOP FIVE MOMENTS FROM THE FEST.
BY MATT DIXON, OCTOBER 2011. ABOVE PHOTO BY NICOLE KILBERT | ELAWGRRL.COM

The Fest 10 , The Ergs, What more do I need to say? Okay, The Fest is a wild Festival held in Gainesville Florida and put on by the great No Idea Records crew. Think tonnes of bands (over 200!) tonnes of venues, a good variety of places to play and musical styling, though they all come together under the banner of Do-It-Yourself punks. --Just my type of people! The FEST is going into its tenth year and there is a possibility that it might be the last, best Fest of all. I'm not sure if this is the end, but you should get down to the deep South and take it all in because it has truly been a remarkable achievement. With that said, I thought it'd be a swell idea to get the great Mikey Erg, a fella who has been involved in just about every Fest ever to give us a list of his top five Fest moments. Thanks Mikey!

Mikey Erg, it is The Fest season once again. And although we're both located a fair distance from Gainesville, Florida, myself on an Island in the far east of Canada and you a little further south in New Jersey; we will both nevertheless (kind of) be there shortly; I have a contributor whom I am very jealous of who will be heading down to take in everything the Fest has to offer and you of course will be playing the festival once again.

You of course are no stranger to the Fest. Having graced the music festival countless times with your former band The Ergs, playing on your own as you will be this year, and hell just marking the occasion and jumping in and playing with other bands and having a good time at it. This is the big one this year. The Fest10. Ten years of the fest. If you wouldn't mind I'd like you to look back over the years and narrow down your top five Fest moments ever.

Mikey: Ha. The thing about Fest is there's a lot of drinking going on, but I'll try to remember a few choice moments...

5.
CHEEKY AT THE FEST 8

Cheeky were one of my favorite bands at the time and they had announced that the Fest would be one of their last shows. A bunch of us made our way over to the Kickstand just in time to see them and they put on one hell of a show. People were losing their minds. It was awesome.

4.
NAKED RAYGUN AT THE FEST 6

One of the first bands I was hipped to when I got into Punk Rock.I never thought I'd get a chance to see them. I went absolutely apeshit when they played. One of my friends pointed out that watching me watch Naked Raygun was almost as fun as actually watch Naked Raygun.

3.
THE MEASURE [SA] AT THE FEST 6

One of my favorite local bands. I was very excited to see them play fest the previous year but once they played, technical difficulties plagued the band the entire time. Bummer. Cut to fest 6. The Measure is the first band of the weekend at 1982. Due to the departure of Guitarist Mike Regrets, Fid moved up to guitar and I'm temporarily filling the drum stool. It's about 30 mins til showtime and half our band hasn't arrived from the airport yet. I'm too stressed to notice that the room is filling up to capacity. 10 minutes til showtime and everyone finally shows up. We start and the place explodes. Friends of ours are trying to sneak in by bum rushing the stage door and diving off the stage into the crowd. Not only was I extremely excited to see my friends get the reaction they deserved but I also got to be a part of it.

2.
THE ERGS AT THE FEST 4

The Ergs are in the middle of a 2 1/2 month tour around the country. We're opening for MC Chris and are not all that well-received at most of the shows. We took a couple days off from the tour to fly out to Gainesville for The Fest. Our First. I'd heard many great things and I was really excited to be there. We get to our show and its at a small venue called The Sidebar. Cool place. after the first couple bands on our show we go to set up and I notice the room is really filling up. This is kinda strange since we were not used to more than a few people paying attention to our performances. and soon as we started the place erupted. We played our allotted twenty minutes to the best crowd we'd ever had the privilege of playing for. It felt really great to finally realize that people were listening!

1.
THE ERGS AT THE FEST 7

I looked at the schedule and noticed that we were playing The Venue, A much larger venue than the Common Grounds where we had played the last couple years. I was kind of worried we wouldn't be able to fill it up. Then Tony from fest asks us if we'd like to take Dead To Me's slot too since they had cancelled and it would most likely be the last time people would be able to see us. We accepted but I was less than confident people would want to sit through 2 sets of ours. One thing I've learned is to trust Tony cause the guy knows what he's doing. We played 2 sets to an amazing capacity crowd and it was a excellent way for the Ergs to go out!

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FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE FEST | FIND OUT MORE ABOUT MIKEY ERG

Feeling down in the dumps in his second year of university Matt Dixon took things into his own hands and started to interview bands, put on little shows throughout his native Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island and started this little webzine that could. He likes to listen to rad records and watch films at Charlottetown's only art-house theatre, the beloved City Cinema. Current Listening: Buried Inside, Q & Not U, Tallest Man On Earth, Lucero, The Transit.

E- MATT (AT) JUNNNKTANK.COM
H- JUNNNKTANK.COM/MD

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