Walking onstage wearing a glittering party hat, NOFX lead guitarist Aaron "El Hefe" Abeyta was ready to celebrate his 50th birthday with the Montreal crowd alongside his bandmates, who dressed for the occasion. Fat Mike wore a hot pink sundress to match his bright red mohawk, while Eric Melvin opted to go shirtless to play his guitar decked out with a sticker reading "Punk Princess."
This offbeat humour was certainly nothing new to those who had seen the band before, with the show being equal parts musical performance and "Just For Laughs," as El Hefe fittingly dubbed it. The band butchered the simplest of French phrases and had the birthday boy smash two piñatas onstage in between roaring through a number of crowd favourites such as "Bob," "Franco Un-American" and "Linoleum." Ever the mouthpiece, Fat Mike led the stage banter discussion on such things as punk rockers versus metalheads and musings on religion that would make any politically correct person's skin crawl before playing "72 Hookers" and "Leaving Jesusland."
A hint of Canadian flavour was also included in the set, with the band playing the controversial "Creeping Out Sara" and their decidedly more rocking version of Joe Dassin's "Champs Elysées," before which Fat Mike remarked, "You'd better like this song. If you don't, you're unpatriotic."
This offbeat humour was certainly nothing new to those who had seen the band before, with the show being equal parts musical performance and "Just For Laughs," as El Hefe fittingly dubbed it. The band butchered the simplest of French phrases and had the birthday boy smash two piñatas onstage in between roaring through a number of crowd favourites such as "Bob," "Franco Un-American" and "Linoleum." Ever the mouthpiece, Fat Mike led the stage banter discussion on such things as punk rockers versus metalheads and musings on religion that would make any politically correct person's skin crawl before playing "72 Hookers" and "Leaving Jesusland."
A hint of Canadian flavour was also included in the set, with the band playing the controversial "Creeping Out Sara" and their decidedly more rocking version of Joe Dassin's "Champs Elysées," before which Fat Mike remarked, "You'd better like this song. If you don't, you're unpatriotic."
