This is Rubber Ducky; what's your 20?

Hello everyone!
Well, the entirety of my Saturday was occupied with EdgeFest, a hardcore festival held in Appleton which featured the soaring talents of a little band you might've heard of called Fallen Sparrows, amongst many others. The festival itself lasted about 12 hours and had 2 stages, roughly 2 dozen bands, and about thirty kids all wearing the same Underoath shirt.
The first band I witnessed was Black Hand Tactics (I forgot to ask them if the name was inspired by the terrorist network which essentially assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but i assumed this was the case) who dominated a set steeped in originality and good songwriting (and most importantly, as few hXc cliches as possible), though admittedly the sound was quite poor. Not that that's their fault in the least; whoever was in charge of that aspect at the festival really could've done better, though it did improve as the night wore on.
Anyway, their guitarists noodled out countless snakey riffs from their instruments, all while dressed in disgusting short shorts of the variety that girls often wear in Phy Ed, and their drummer delivered technical drumming with finesse, peppered with tasteful blastbeats. Their vocalist did a combination of Entombed-style death metal vocals as well as an early Emperor screech to great effect. Both won kudos from this reviewer.
Fallen Sparrows played 2 sets after BHT, and reliable stalwarts that they are, delivered a killer set of their idiosyncratic brand of... I don't know... post-hardcore? Several bucketloads of sweat later, Zach looked like his head was bleeding, but it was actually the temporary red dye that he had put in his bangs melting and running down his face, thus rendering the look of a combat wounded veteran (who are an excellent band, by the way!).
In the Face of War followed close after FS, and impressed me with the forward-thinking sonic innovations they offered old-school Cro-Mags and Agnostic Front style hardcore. Even their cover of a Foo Fighters song ("Everlong") went over with me quite well. (That one took me a second the recognize it for what it really was; when I first heard the chords, I thought, "Gosh that sounds familiar..." but it kind of eluded me until I heard the chorus and it clicked.) Their vocalist introduced every song with pleas for unity and positive thinking and lifestyles before kicking it into gear with the rest of the band and annihilating everything in sight. As far as I'm concerned, this band can do no wrong.
A few sets after ItFoW played, Zach, Jon, Joel (A., not W.) and Jason and I took a break to check out the theater in the mall the festival took place at and saw "Meet the Fockers" which was disgusting to the utmost and reliant far too much upon gross-out humor and tepid jokes cultivated in the first movie, but was enjoyable nonetheless... for the most part. Some parts still make me shudder, though.
The highlight of the evening came with the second to last band, Nodes of Ranvier, who basically wiped the slate clean and destroyed most of the bands who were nufortunate enough to play in the hour or so before them. I still don't really think that they're a hardcore group, even based on the current defintion of what is hardcore, but I could be wrong, and I might be overanalyzing the entire phenomenon in an attempt to categorize, but that's neither here nor there. The fact of the matter is that Nodes are an awesome group who pummel mercilessly but are totally humble and genuinely appreciative to have had so many kids there to support not only them but the entire movement as a whole, so they drove away from Appleton with a couple dozen brownie points from me.
Allow me to digress for a moment, and just say that if you want to hardcore dance at a show, more power to you. That's cool. But please do it in the area designated for just such conduct, i.e. the big empty spot that people have backed away from that don't want to hardcore dance. There was one pseudo-chubby fellow in a black hoodie who would be standing in the midst of a whole gaggle of people and immediately start thrashing and just destroying people (Jon and myself included). Not cool, man. Be a bit more respectful, eh? Just move 5 feet forward into that big hollow circle where OTHER people are also hardcore dancing (imagine that) and proceed to rip, please.
After Nodes, Jon and I bailed for home once more. We returned at about 1:30 in the morning and I crashed at his place once more to facilitate church in the morning, which was amazing, p.s. The issue of having a sermon was thrown out the window in light of the fellowship we were having and all of the testimony that so many people had to offer. It was quite the emotional experience, and I consider myself privileged for having been there. I also met Nick Pavlik for the first time there, and I am honored to be accounted as one of his friends now.
The Taubes, Nick and I had lunch at Applebee's where of course we saw Ryan Bushaw (aka the Shaw, aka the Bear, aka Ziggy Shawdust, aka Nips, aka the Knife) and hilarity ensued. In fact, hilarity ensued once in the form of Jon's mom spillin raspberry iced tea all over me. I'm not holding onto resentment, it was funny. She asked me how I got my socks wet, and I told her it was because my feet were bellow me...? She forgot that dudes don't really clench their legs together when we're seated, given the whole thing about how (for the most part) we don't wear dresses. For the most part.
Over all, it was a quite awesome weekend, one that has left me destitute financially, but rich in free t-shirts, pens, and EPs, as well as in spirit. Rock and roll, people!

Love,
Ian