Once a year crust punks from across the
province gather around the St Henri lofts known as Fatal for a festival filled
with debauchery, booze and punk rock. However, the first night, Friday August 24th
didn`t go as planned when police arrived threatening to arrest the audience.
Fatal Fest is a yearly punk festival organized
solely to piss off the slumlord Farzad Fatal who owns and “maintains” the
complexes. For years tenants’ requests for simple renovations have been ignored
leaving the infrastructure in a dire state. So as a form of retaliation the
punker inhabitants decided to host one of the biggest punk festivals in Quebec.
Although it may seem counterintuitive to host an event which results in major
damages as a way to refute the buildings poor state; nothing says a good “f***
you” like two hundred pissed off and intoxicated youths pushing one another to
loud music.
Since I’m a fan of the chaotic lifestyle of
punks and wholeheartedly love the music, this was an event I had to attend. Also
a few of my friend’s bands were playing such as AIDS, Chix n Dix, and The
Bloody Cunt Rags. When I arrived to the event it was packed with people and it
was almost impossible to push my way through to my friends set. They played
quite the tumultuous show considering the cops arrived as their stage made out
of scrap wood and bricks broke down simultaneously. It would be foolish to
assume that the organizers of the festival actually got a permit, so it wasn’t long
before the power was shut off and everyone was forced to leave. Punks were left
astray to wander the streets of Montreal leaving behind a trail of broken beer
bottles and spit.
