Tuesday, June 27, 2006

punk bands don't like Jesus

I was present at the Raleigh stop of the Warped Tour today. I must say that despite the rain, I had a good time. I was a little miffed by a couple of the bands though. First, I was checking out The Casualties, a sort of gutter punk band, ie dayglow mohawks and liberties and yelling over melodic three chord riffs. You get the idea. At any rate, towards the end of their set, they pointed over to the other main stage, where Underoath (a Christian screamo band) was preparing to go on next and said something to the affect of, "When you leave here, let's go give those Christians hell." Then, an hour after Underoath finished, NOFX played. I wasn't there for the beginning of the set, but, according to my roommate, they said all the Christians could leave when they started. I was there later on when Fat Mike, the lead singer, said the following (again, it's a paraphrase):
"You know North Carolina is the best state in the country, right? Haha. I'm just saying that to get you to buy our cd's...actually, dont' buy our cd's. Buy the Underoath cd because you get to go to Heaven. Our cd's won't get you anything."
He was joking obviously and I laughed. But the fact that two bands took shots at their tourmates just for being Christian bothered me. I don't know a lot about the Casualties, but I'm assuming they're at least somewhat political. And I know the guys in NOFX are political. Fat Mike founded punkvoter.org and released two anti-bush compliation albums on his label, Fat Wreck Chords. So here's my question: aren't liberals supposed to be all about tolerance and diversity? I mean, I understand that most of them hate Bush and feel like he's brought his faith into the job too much. That's fine. I'm not a Bush fan either and I have no desire to live in a theocracy. And I realize that the majority of practicing Christians are conservatives also. I'm not saying I don't understand why they're at odds sometimes. But how does juvenile humor and unprovoked attacks solve anything? Every other band I saw today had nothing but nice things to say about the other bands on the tour. They spent their limited time complimenting the other bands and encouraging the crowd to check out their friends and heroes. And NOFX did some of that too. But for some reason they felt the need to take shots at the Christians in attendance while they were at it. That's okay though. They/we can take it. I just think it's silly and immature and I wish I could expect better from men in their thirties with a bunch of impressionable kids listening to them. Most of all, I just think it's another symptom of the fact that, while no one's allowed to make fun of any other political, social, or racial group in the country, Christians are fair game. I'm usually up for any time of humor and I rarely get offended. I just hate that there's such a double-standard. I'll stop ranting now though.

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