The Counterforce - Skull Fest

Skull Fest 2025 Reportback

2025-09-18T11:44:05.000-04:00

Photos by Joe The Photo Guy

Another humid mid-atlantic August means another Skull Fest in lovely steel city, Pittsburgh, PA. I know, I know, “another fest?” How many fests do we really need? I don’t really know, but for me at least, Skull Fest feels like the one that breaks the mold. Instead of being a weekend of punk and hardcore curated by one person’s taste, Skull Fest is a true collaborative effort. You get a mix of punk that is sure to hit all your sensibilities: punk, hardcore, hardcore punk, crust, goth, and for better or worse, even oi.

SKULL FEST 15 lineup

The amount of bands playing Skull Fest is overwhelming and you are sure to get as much as you can handle, but the main reason I love going to Skull Fest is hanging out. Most shows have an opportunity to see all your friends, there’s the punk’s picnic, the afterparty, and of course the trips to Page’s Dairy Mart for some vegan Oreo peanut butter arctic swirls or eating Spak Bros by the Sphynix with boobs statues in that graveyard.

Amerikkka’s current political climate and tightening border policies had a noticeable impact on the usual handful of international bands this year. Regardless, there were still some banger sets every night. I wasn’t there, but my collaborator on this report back, Joe the Photo Guy, said SEX DWARF (who might have been the only fully international band?) were wild Thursday night.

SEX DWARF

My weekend started Friday by missing all of the matinee show because somehow it ran way ahead of schedule. The last half of ZYCLONE’s last song was good though! Later that day, I popped into Spirit to catch SHORT LEASH (who played a surprising and welcomed 86 MENTALITY cover), and IRON LUNG. Those 2 dudes still got it.

ZYCLONE at The Courts

After some Sexless // No sex I had a lovely walk over to the Profane Existence 36th anniversary show. FLOWER played another powerful set and were followed by the first of 2 DESTROY sets of the weekend. I didn’t know what to expect from the DESTROY set but it rocked. They were tight, loud, and still angry. As a sidenote, I had no idea the guitarist of NO STATIK was in DESTROY. Sick. Upstairs from the Profane show, I caught EARLY GRAVE, a killer band from Philadelphia, PEACE TALKS, who are always great live, and UNIFORMED SERVICES, another band from Boston who has that Boston sound and does it really well. I tried to stay up for the aftershow, but I’m a morning person and I know my limitations, so I unfortunately never got to see SEX DWARF. Bummer.

PEACE TALKS

Saturday started at the Prevention Point matinee show. This is where my enjoyment of hanging out started to conflict with seeing all the bands playing. I ended up only seeing CHILDREN WITH DOG FEET, who played a very sick PENI cover, and WHO PAYS?. I also got in trouble for playing a game of Commander in an area we shouldn’t have been in, but that’s a story for another time. From there I headed back to Spirit for that night’s crust show. DESTRUCT proved once again that they are one of the best bands in this horrible country I live in. DROPDEAD ripped. After all these years the anger, passion, and commitment the message is still there. Bob gave several impassioned speeches, something I feel is missing from most shows today. I caught the first half of DESTROY’s second set and it was still good.

DESTRUCT and DROPDEAD

From Spirit I headed over to Spirit Quest where I will admit I went to the Oi show, but friendship rocks and I wanted to see my homies in SECLUSION play. Genuinely enjoyed their set. Afterwards, I hung around to catch some of NO TIME where their singer Adam (who is also a Skull Fest organizer) once again put his body on the line and broke his hand from rocking too hard.

NO TIME

Much like the night before, no matter how much I intended to go to the aftershow to see CONDUMB, a band who put out one of my favorite records of the year, I went to bed.

CONDUMB record

Sunday’s matinee show is usually my favorite show of the weekend. The lineup for this one had some last minute changes. MACHINE GUN and DEMONSTRATE, a band that proves straightedge is still punk, unfortunately didn’t play, BUT we were blessed with a second FLOWER set. Right before that bonus set was ULTIMATE DISASTER who give their fellow Richmond dwellers, DESTRUCT, a run for their money for best band in Amerikkka at the moment. UD into FLOWER was my favorite two set combo of the weekend. I would listen to a UD/FLOWER split until my turntable broke. The one thing noticeably missing from Sunday afternoon was the Evil Ways wrestling show that has happened the past few years. I think Cole puts a lot of effort and care into giving a group of people who might not know what the fuck is going on a good show. The man truly cares about the art form of deathmatch wrestling.

No photos of FLOWER or ULTIMATE DISASTER

My Skull Fest closed out with the STORMCROW gig. I caught ZYCLONE again who fucking RIPPED, holy shit that band is good live, and LANGUID, who are from Edmonton, Canada but might as well be from Sweden. Absolutely perfect ANTI-CIMEX worship. This was STORMCROW’s first gig on this side of the country, which sounds like it can’t be true but I guess it is! It was a very sick set, they sounded great and was a nice endcap to the weekend.

I did not expect to write this much about the weekend. I think how I approach Skull Fest is different from others, but punk gave me a ton of great friendships and for me it’s a celebration of that. Can’t wait for next year. Thanks to Joe for the pictures. I think he does a great job capturing “the culture”.

DE RODILLAS, PAPRIKA, and some well-hydrated homies (your author included)

SKULLFEST 2024 OFFICIAL REPORT

2024-08-26T21:06:53.000-04:00

I probably should have wrote this down the minute I was on my way back to Montreal, but let's argue that the high speed blur of bands, friends, merch and exotic gas stations is better hazy and half-remembered. This was my first time attending and my first time in Pittsburgh, but I had been hearing about it for years as most of us have—always considered as the top of DIY punk fests with psycho lineups and generalized chaos throughout. Not to cut suspense in the first paragraph, but it obviously delivered. Here's my thoughts of the shows and bands I saw!

OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER: I didn't get the full fest wristband since I'm broke-adjacent and I knew there would be shows I just couldn't muster the energy for, so there's a lot of stuff I didn't see! I would be shocked if anyone managed to catch every single show (if you did, write in you fucking psycho, talk to me about your diet and stretching routine). Also no band photos, somebody else can do that shit

THURSDAY

Spent most of the day driving down with Kelly and 3/4 of JAVA, uneventful other than the border guard angling for tattoo recommendations and asking if we were "really living the punk lifestyle," whatever that means. Turns out the same guy did the buddy-buddy act and then tore apart WARKRUSHER's van, so fuck him.

As soon as we got into Pittsburgh, it reminded me of interior British Columbia—steep hills, thick forest, loud insects, rotting out buildings and really beautiful signage from the '70s and '80s. As a friend said, it feels like a city that nature is reclaiming. If I was from there, I would be very passionate about it, and that showed with every local I talked to this weekend.

FRIDAY

After an enormous sandwich and a visit to the graveyard (highlights including a Jaws-themed tombstone, goats, woodchucks and two very erotic sphinx statues), I finally got to my first proper show. DEATH GASP played first, but I only caught a song or two—no comment. Then, undersung Portland noise-punk band FRENZY stepped up, two bassists! Can't say I noticed much of a difference but love to that on principle, felt like it could have been louder. Next up was YDI who need no introduction. The response to them was pretty muted, it would have been great to see them on a more hardcore bill, but I know there's a million things that can happen with scheduling. Anyways, the energy was high and theatrical, Jackal told us to smoke angel dust and kill our family, the Freddy Krueger glove was fun too. They ended with an AGNOSTIC FRONT cover which was OK, and we were immediately out the door to run and catch PROTOCOL six blocks away. They probably don't need an introduction either. Furious, relentless, easily one of the best sets of the weekend. (Here's a link to a great interview with the vocalist, Ahmad).

This other venue, Cattivo, was a night and day difference—two long, narrow halls stacked on top of each other, perfect for pits. Also, smoking inside, another Pittsburgh quirk I had heard about, which had me bumming cigs even though I almost never smoke (when in Rome, you know). Remaining upstairs was SCARECROW who were sick but just didn't really grab me, HARAM who were incredible in a smaller room compared to some bigger gigs I've seen them at, I thought it was great when Nader corrected somebody in the crowd's pronunciation of 'inshallah' too. Then there was BLAZING EYE who I decided to skip to catch the downstairs headliner EXTINCTION OF MANKIND. They were extremely tight musically and had the crowd's attention, but I heard two separate people making jokes about the lead singer sounding like he was just going 'ba ba ba ba ba ba ba' through all the songs. After that was the aftershow, where I managed to pay $35 USD to catch two songs of LEBENDEN TOTEN, oh well, got caught slipping. Two days remain...

SATURDAY

Your faithful author abides and imbibes

Woke up neck stiff on the air mattress, ate a bagel and headed to the matinee. It was in the same spot as the aftershows, a warehouse space that housed a harm reduction group called Prevention Point, always good to see Naloxone freely available where people are partying. Speaking of partying, I missed essentially everyone there with one pointed exception: MUTANT STRAIN, who were one of my favourite bands at Something to Talk About in Philly last year. It was good to see more than the top of Maryssa's head as they jumped around this time, always excited by bands that have more than three parts per song, truly vicious. From there, I hopped in with WARKRUSHER and headed to the other side of town for the evening shows.

It's odd to say, but one of the bands I was most looking forward to seeing was TOTAL NADA from here in Montreal. They've been evolving constantly and tightening into this dark hooky furious thing with punk jumps and one of the best vocalists I've seen, no idea how Boris was able to keep it up while also doing last minute replacement vox for X2000. However, one fateful poppers hit during PHYSIQUE put me into the zone of darkness, and I sadly had to take a breather before re-entering the swamp that was downstairs of Cattivo. BOG PEOPLE was starting soon... one of my favourite bands of that early 2010s era, who honestly made me dig deeper into UK82 and spiky punk shit as I was emerging from my No Idea Records and flannel phase... never thought I'd be able to see them. The set was perfect: cartoonish excess, so much sweat dripping off the walls. Also there was a guy crawling around on stage in a ghillie suit the whole time, which I didn't notice until I got up close to scream "VIOLENCE" over and over again. Just perfect.

Oh, and I missed LEBENDEN TOTEN. Again. I may never recover from this level of being caught slipping.

The aftershow didn't have much going on, basically it was 500 tired and vaguely horny punks drinking in a parking lot while being lightly rained on. There was a set from SWORDWIELDER too, but I don't know anyone who actually saw it. Sat in the gravel for a while and headed back to the porch I was sleeping on.

SUNDAY

Blood and Punks

Time for total redemption of punk. First thing though, I went and ate a chicken sandwich at Hardee's alone, drank some Liquid IV and recouped my mental state. Then we went to see the semi-secret backyard wrestling show in the woods. Honestly, watching a guy with a red mohawk and an Operation Ivy shirt smash light tubes and staple dollar bills onto another guy's forehead was deeply life-affirming. Just needed to see some blood I guess! After the match there was a set from VICIOUS BLADE, who sounded incredible in the open air, love when the lead singer in a metal punk band does an evil laugh before the breakdown. I wish more people were able to come out to it, but it being a side thing made it special too. Energized by violence and watching a dirt bike do donuts in a field, we hit the matinee.

This was the show I was most looking forward to: total fastcore annihilation. The mood felt very positive in the parking lot compared to the night before, I think the "summer camp is almost over" feeling was taking hold a little. ILLITERATES smashed a cake into the pit, YAMBAG covered both Stiff Little Fingers and Gauze, and INNUENDO played a set on the level of the DIE KREUZEN public access video, total melt. READY ARMED SYSTEM were the biggest surprise for me, overwhelming and totally their own thing, excited to see them again. Outside the show, we had the chance to thank Krystyna for all the work she and the rest of the organizers had done. Honestly, the fact that everything ran smoothly, on time and with what seemed like minimal friction was stunning, there's a reason this fest is considered the gold standard.

I had basically no interest in the night shows (crust and oi isn't really my shit), but a friend convinced me to pop in for one set and I'm so glad I did. NO TIME managed to squeak in one of my favourite sets of the fest just under the wire. Pulling in street punk and NYHC plus insane hooks and presence, N2BM.

There was more stuff after that, of course there was! But it's not worth mentioning, a fire, a fight, some beers etc, I've gone on too long already. Punk life rules, go to Skullfest if you can, shoutout to Kevin and Hilary, bye!

BANDS I WISH I SAW

SURROGATES, THE LOSERS, ARGH, NO KNOCK, FUERA DE SEKTOR, DE RODILLAS, BOOTLICKER