Edgefest Tickets

About Edgefest

Edgefest, the annual summer concert put on by local radio station KDGE-FM (102.1), is always a roll of the dice as far as the lineup goes. Will it reflect what is hip and now, or will it be Nickelback?

But this year's fest, which took place at Smirnoff Music Centre on Saturday, struck it rich by snaring two up-and-coming acts: New Found Glory and Good Charlotte. The two bands, which loosely fall into the same pop-punk category as Blink-182, are currently on the road together on a tour that has emerged as one of the biggest successes this year.

Happy poppy punk attracts young, mostly clean-cut teens, and that's who dominated the full-capacity audience on Saturday. As Edgefest crowds go - and this was the 12th edition - it was a tame scene, with fewer behavioral excesses than in prior years.

Warm-up bands included catchy South African rockers Seether, sharp-dressed punks the Fags and aging, tattooed skate-punkers MxPx, whose set included a dispensable cover of the Clash chestnut "Should I Stay or Should I Go." Nearly every band seemed to possess at least one member with a mohawk haircut variation (grown-out, heavily lacquered, curled into a pouf, etc.).

In the audience, young women went for the Britney look, the Christina look or the more au courant Avril look. For young males, the status object was the trucker cap, the kind with netting on the sides, previously worn only by old guys, but worn jauntily, at an angle.

Good Charlotte opened with sirens wailing and klieg lights flashing. The members all wore black, with a white tie here and a red scarf there for flourish. The band's other asset was the specific, colorful imagery of its lyrics: tales of the cool kids beating them up, of having to ride the bus while the rich kids drive convertibles, of making the baseball team and still not getting respect, and so on.

Its thudding, simplistic music wasn't a strong point. Songs such as "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" and "Little Things" felt like patchwork constructions, with riffs lifted from Sugar Ray, Iggy Pop and others.