Three Days of Skinheads, Hawaiian Shirts and Cider: Supernova Ska Fest
I was nine years old when I first borrowed the book Matilda from my teacher’s bookshelf and read it cover-to-cover. The story of Bruce Bogtrotter and Trunchbull’s chocolate cake remains my go-to metaphor for overindulgence. Six years after reading the book, I would go on to watch New Found Glory and Anti-Flag play with a band called Less Than Jake at the now-defunct Nation nightclub in D.C., sparking a love of ska music that has bloomed for 20 years.
Last weekend, I watched ten hours of bands for three days straight at the Supernova International Ska Fest, an extra large chocolate cake level of ska.
DAY ONE: THE 24-HOUR DAY
The story begins as no stories do, at 4 a.m. in Philadelphia. We had to leave my beautiful home city at such a godforsaken hour for reasons stemming around the prices being charged at the local hotels in Hampton (rooms were about $700 for the weekend when I purchased, a bit of a jump from the modest $60 price tag for the full festival weekend on Kickstarter and the $120 a night hotel blocks they were sponsoring early on). I had dutifully gone to bed at around 7 p.m. the night before, but hadn’t actually fallen asleep until about midnight. With four hours of sleep in my system, I threw on my most generic Hawaiian shirt and tie, exited my Philadelphia apartment, and got in a minivan with my friend and fellow Philly trombonist Tedford.
We arrived in Hampton at 10 a.m. on a lazy Virginia morning, and the hotel was already overrun with ska fans from all over. I shook hands, introduced myself, and delivered a nice, “Where did you guys come in from?” to groups of 30-somethings (the average age of a Supernova visitor was about 35) with 90s-era haircuts and graphic T-shirts. I immediately lost track of names, and began referring to people by their city of origin like a military movie. One name I did have to learn was Trent’s, our third trombone-playing roommate in the hotel room. He was also a person in imminent danger of having to share a bed with me if neither of us found an alternate place to crash. Again, I can’t overstate how pricey this hotel room was for the quality, but splitting the cost between three people helped, and I guess one could say it was good of us to push some cash into the steadily-reviving hotel industry in the aftermath of vaccinations, although no one would.
Having been to a Supernova Ska Fest or two in my day, and having played the event in 2017 with my now-defunct band Behind Deadlines, I knew our first stop would have to be a beer store. There’s a Food Lion supermarket conveniently placed across the bridge from the show grounds in historic Fort Monroe, and the drink selection wasn’t too shabby. Packs of Sly Clyde cider in hand, we crossed the bridge to join the parking lot tailgate. I was unsurprised when it began to rain right as we arrived. It cleared up quickly enough, and we got to work on ciders and socializing with some lovely Fred Perry-clad skinheads. It’s probably worth mentioning that skinheads at ska shows are not nazis, and in point of fact violently dislike nazis, but do sometimes face the issue of being mistaken for them. They are known for starting the occasional fight at shows with people they perceive as nazis, but the vast majority of them are quite nice and often of an age where there’s not much youthful aggression or hair on their heads left to shave. It is sometimes jokingly referred to as the ska retirement plan. I played in a skinhead band for a couple of years and met very nice skinheads all over the US and Latin America. They’re a great group to have on your side in an unfamiliar area.
The show gates opened at noon, and with three ciders already in my system, I was quite ready to get the party started. But first, front gate tickets and Covid protocols. The whole thing was super organized. A group of ticket experts handled my wristbands while a group of medical experts shot me with a temperature gun and checked my proof of vaccination (you couldn’t get in without proof of vax or a negative test within the last week). Then I partied. For ten full hours. In sweltering Virginia heat. Our only respite was another rainstorm, which mercifully stopped the onslaught of guitar offbeats and forced us to make new friends under whatever tent we could find space in. The medical experts came by and rightfully yelled at everyone to get their masks on while we sheltered ourselves. The rain also summoned a small army of mosquitos, but the grounds held together and I’m lucky I don’t have any cliche music festival mud pit photos.
The Pilfers finished the first night strong, and I walked my familiar fairgrounds route over to Tedford, who was talking to another well-mannered-but-intimidating-looking skinhead. I gingerly joined the conversation, in which we gathered that this particular skinhead played keyboard. Tedford asked if he played with a band, and we received the bombshell: this was Roger from The Aggrolites, a man almost universally regarded as the best keyboardist in ska and reggae history. And he needed a ride to the afterparty. We happened to be riding in Tedford’s minivan, and luckily he made the decision I would have made, even after word got out about our van and we ended up with two more sibling passengers whose names I will omit to protect their identities as this story begins to slide off the rails.
The afterparty, or at least the one that we went to, was at an unassuming Hampton bar called Phoebus Dive Bar, named after a now-extinct town that Hampton took over. Living in Philadelphia, I have a sense of how annoying it is when a group of nerds swarm a town and suddenly believe they own the place, but I can only imagine what the Hampton locals must have thought of the scene in this bar. We came in like a flash flood, shifting the scene from a small gathering of local college students to an overcrowded midlife crisis of bald heads and Vans shoes and polo shirts. Showgoers mercilessly shoved money in the jukebox and jammed their dirty concert fingers on every ska song they could find, dumping a little extra to skip the Dave Matthews and Oasis songs in queue. Someone started spinning reggae records out front, expanding the debacle out into the street in a way I can’t imagine to be legal. And new band members continued pouring in from their hotels, being met with excited heps and pickitups and whatever else ska people say.
I have a sense of how annoying it is when a group of nerds swarm a town and suddenly believe they own the place.
For once in my life, I was in the right place at the right time. Not only was Roger from the Aggrolites a very humble guy for all his ska notoriety, he was generous with his time and energy. Everyone wanted to talk to him. Suddenly my table, flanked by three trombone-playing dopes and three LA strays that we picked up in our dorky minivan, became a social hub. People were as curious and dumbfounded as I was as to how I ended up at the center of everything, and they acted genuinely impressed when I offered my meager ska credentials (I played trombone with Inspecter 7 for a couple of years, which is something anyone can do if they live in the New Jersey area and own a trombone). Delicious chicken wings and shots were brought to us like rockstars, and I had real-life difficulty determining if I was awake or dreaming.
Luckily, a very drunk skinhead took it upon himself to snap me back into reality as our group streamed outside for the impromptu reggae DJ set.
“You need to shut up before you get your ass kicked. Why are you dressed like a fascist?”
I was still wearing the Hawaiian shirt and tie I wore to the show, adorned with flamingos and ferns. I was baffled. The crowd around me informed me that racists had taken up wearing Hawaiian shirts the same way they had taken up marching with tiki torches, and my real-life ska dream began to take a dark turn. It got darker when I looked it up and learned too much about the alt-right ‘boogaloo boys’ (read at your own peril) and that the guy angry with me was a Redskin, which is a term for a Marxist skinhead. A couple of years playing with Inspecter 7 gets you a lot of experience with drunk skinheads, and I was singing songs with the guy before too long. Still, it seemed we had worn out our welcome, and it was time to get everyone home.
My memory of the number of people in our minivan on the way back to the hotel seems improbable, but it worked in that way that things tend to work with enough alcohol. One person we were missing was the elder of the two brothers we brought over. The younger brother, a youth in his early twenties who we’ll call Hooch because he was insanely drunk, was very upset that his brother had left without notice. We did our best to calm him down and told him we’d get him back to his hotel, but unfortunately there were a few issues. He didn’t know what hotel he was staying in, had no room number, and his phone was out of battery.
So began our unexpected journey of getting Hooch home. Our preliminary evidence led us to a hotel across the street from the one I was staying in, where we thought we might find his brother. Instead we found the band Monkey, drinking outside their hotel rooms, doors open. I watched Hooch drunkenly interrogate them, then asked if he could borrow my phone. We’d made it this far together, I had to get the guy home. He attempted to dial his brother, which didn’t work, then called his mom and informed her that he was going to kill his brother.
He attempted to dial his brother, which didn’t work, then called his mom and informed her that he was going to kill his brother.
From what I could tell, this didn’t go over well with his mom, but it did get my phone number to most of Hooch’s family. When my phone was returned, I found the following texts:
Hooch Momr
Call me now
[blocked number]
Hi! This is Hooch’s sister this is the address that his brother is staying at: [address]
At long last, we dropped Hooch off at the appropriate hotel, and those of us remaining figured it was time for a victory meal at Waffle House. The restaurant was closed inside, and stepping up to the order window a woman greeted us by knocking loudly on the closed window, pointing to a sign that said “BREAK 15 MINUTES,” and walked away. Behind us a drug-addled man appeared, and two police officers behind him. Someone made the ill-advised decision of asking the cops what other food options were around, and the officers were actually rather helpful. So we took off toward Cook Out.
As we inspected our drive-through Cook Out orders for accuracy, I looked around the van and noticed that my backpack, with all of my clothes and belongings for the weekend, was missing. In its place were Hooch’s cellphone and a garbage bag he had brought into the van. I thought back and remembered that Hooch had been wearing a backpack when we sent him back to his hotel. So, to everyone’s annoyance, it was time to go back to Hooch’s hotel again, back to the room Monkey was now eating Waffle House outside of, gathering enough information to learn the general vicinity of Hooch’s room. By some miracle, Hooch actually answered the door, collected his phone and trash bag, and told me that he didn’t have my backpack. He had left it in Monkey’s hotel room.
Long story short, we couldn’t get back into Monkey’s hotel room and all of my belongings were now with sleeping people I met an hour earlier. The only 7-Eleven I could find in walking distance didn’t have toothbrushes, so I took a big swig of mouthwash and eventually feel into an exhausted unwashed slumber.
DAY TWO: TRIUMPH AND REGRET
I woke up with another 4 hours of sleep in my system, put on my Hawaiian fascist uniform from the day before, and marched back to Monkey’s hotel, where I found them to be absent. At this point my ska-fueled energy and optimism was a little shaken, but the show must go on, and my buddies in Thirteen Towers were opening the ska fest at noon. I asked Tedford and Trent if they wanted to go try the Waffle House again. It was as if I had read their minds. Back in the minivan.
Waffle House may have been the only place I visited in Hampton not entirely infested with ska fans, which is notable. Instead we saw a mishmash of Hampton locals, none looking as scary as the one we had seen the night before, but certainly enough of them to keep the staff busy. I croaked out an order for an All-Star special with tea and water, with an emphasis on the water, a beverage I was in desperate need of. The tea came out, then the food. Then, after two gentle reminders to the waitress, I was able to hydrate, which may have been the best part of the day. With the ability to speak regained, I got down to business with Tedford, and the two of us took the role of luggage detectives. We somehow ascertained the phone number of the guy from Monkey. I anxiously texted him as I shoveled waffles and grits into my face, relieved that the day could only get better from here.
Monkey was already at the festival, but they had brought my backpack. Great. We pulled up into the parking lot just in time to hear my buddies from Thirteen Towers shout, “Alright, this is our last song!” from the stage, and I heard the final notes as I entered the gates. I greeted them with an apology for missing their set and the first of many explanations I would have to give as to why I was wearing my clothes from the day before. Then I set off to find my backpack.
Brian from Monkey turned out to be a very cool guy that was super-nice about getting me my belongings back even after security wouldn’t let me follow him through the VIP area. Hopefully he understood how grateful I was to get them back, but my immediate concern was finding a break in the schedule so I could slip away to return to the hotel for a shower and change of clothes. My moment came within minutes as Mephiskapheles finished their set, and two Lyfts later I was showered and in a whole new Hawaiian fascist uniform at Sly Clyde Ciderworks just across the bridge from the show. I figured that perhaps if I could chug enough cider before returning to the show, I could avoid looking like someone that had slept eight hours in the last three days. It didn’t work, but the walk across the bridge was nice.
I ended up taking a nap on some collapsed boxes behind Thirteen Towers’ tent. Catbite had come down from Philadelphia independently of us, and played a set that I just had to dance for, exhaustion and all. I didn’t know it would be directly followed by Mustard Plug, which is a very rare treat to see on the East Coast, and worth expending any energy I had left. These two sets occurred from 4:15 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., just as the sun reached a point of beaming directly on our little dance pits like a magnifying glass over an ant hill. I returned from Mustard Plug drenched in sweat and listened to the lady from the beard oil tent make fun of me for changing Hawaiian shirts and tell me how she had seen a dead body in the tent next to hers at her camp site the night before. Then I fell asleep on some cardboard.
I returned from Mustard Plug drenched in sweat and listened to the lady from the beard oil tent make fun of me for changing Hawaiian shirts and tell me how she had seen a dead body in the tent next to hers at her camp site the night before.
There were multiple afterparties that night that I’m sure other showgoers could recount with all the fondness that I recounted the Dive Bar. I wouldn’t know. I was not at those afterparties. I was dead asleep in our hotel room, next to my newly-reacquired phone charger and backpack. Day two was not my best work, but day three was going to be different.
DAY THREE: NOT THAT MUCH DIFFERENT
I awoke a new man, announcing to my hotel roommates that I was going to hit the shower and walk to Bojangles for breakfast. They nodded in sleep-deprived acquiescence. They had been to the afterparties the night before. The hot water in our shower didn’t work, but that was okay, I was excited to be able to wake up and shower at all. Trent parted ways to go play a show down in Raleigh, leaving me with his valuable VIP wristband, and I took off for the lobby. On the way out the door, I spotted the trumpet player from Mustard Plug getting coffee and stopped him to compliment him on his set. My throat was dry, my ears were blown out from guitar upbeats, and my feet were definitely blistering from all the dancing, but I was feeling pretty great.
I felt so great I almost forgot that all moments of greatness in my life are temporary. Bojangles was drive-through only, foiling my wonderful morning walk plan. Unfortunately there was a Taco Bell nearby, so I resigned to get breakfast there instead. A breakfast burrito and an iced tea later, I was ready to perhaps view the local beaches and historic buildings of Hampton, but as always time was short and it was already time to get back to the concert parking lot and get back to pregaming. And so we did, meeting two new friends from Baltimore who allowed me to use their cooler and return several times between sets to fuel up.
Day three was a great grand finale, with every band on the bill, whether fresh-faced or old and established, delivering stellar performances. It was remarkable that I still had any patience for ska music at all, much less relishing every moment of it. I was surrounded by old and new friends who had all become war buddies, suffering the highs and lows of the unending ska for days. I heard great jokes and stories, saw great dancers and artists, met adults, teens, and a couple of babies, and even hung out with the Mustard Plug trumpet player I complimented when I left the hotel.
Unfortunately talking about these things brings me dangerously close to sincerity, and having been raised in northern Virginia I am allergic to that stuff, so I’ll get into the final two afterparties. The first was at a place called Fullers, and the bartender Brandon there gets points for being my favorite bartender of the weekend, even though I’m sure he hates me and everyone I came in with. He had planned to close up the bar early, but agreed to stick around as long as money was coming in, which it certainly did in the form of a few dozen ska fans. But listening to Brandon talk to the locals reminded me of the time I’ve spent in New England, and made me realize that I’m friends with so many New England assholes because my home state of Virginia is really just full of better-disguised assholes. We’re a little nicer on the road, but we get a real kick out of greeting each other with something rude.
Speaking of something rude, the ska people once again took over the bar soundtrack, but the Fullers crowd was a little more reluctant to be driven out by it. Some of them hung out with my new Ohio friends and I at the bar. We met an old Hampton local who would not have been out of place playing a prospector in a western movie, and his young friends who said they were mad at him for taking their dating prospects away. Outside, ska fans were geeking out to keyboard tones on old records, proving that no matter how much time I’ve lived in Philly, Virginia is still my home.
The second afterparty had been going on for a while in the courtyard of our hotel when we got back. There was a fire pit and enough noise to upset the staff and patrons. A barefoot man shared his tequila with us. I think everyone was sticking around for the same reason. We didn’t want the weekend to end. And finally, around 6 in the morning, the other three remaining revelers and I decided to head back to our hotel rooms. I was unaware that I would have to wake up and get back in the minivan 3 hours later, but that story is not exactly Supernova related.
If you’re exhausted from reading this whole thing, you can imagine how I felt living it. But somehow returning back to normal life always reminds us of how quickly we’d get back in line to do it all over again. The weekend was loud, chaotic, restless, sore, and at times downright traumatic, but if I could go back and change any of it I’d probably just tell Hooch to leave my backpack in the van and do the rest the same. Cheers, Supernova. Ska might be dead, and most of its remaining fans may be hitting their 40s, but it’s living a great afterlife.
“There you are, Bogtrotter,” the Trunchbull said, and once again her voice became soft, persuasive, even gentle. “It’s all for you, every bit of it. As you enjoyed that slice you had yesterday so very much, I ordered cook to bake you an extra large one all for yourself.”
Matilda
The 2021 Supernova Ska Festival is over, but you can still purchase a livestream pass from Mandolin for $34.00
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