Acara yang totally minus promotions ini jelas jelas berhasil dari sisi promo words of mouth. Indikasinya signifikan karena dari pukul 10 venue sudah penuh sesak oleh remaja dengan dandanan rock show andalan mereka; black t-shirts, dompet rantai, tattoos dan sedikit aura nakal alkohol. Walau beberapa jam sebelumnya lagi-lagi ada berita kalau NOFX kemungkinan ga jadi main, tapi ampli Mesa Boogie dangan stiker logo NOFX yang berdiri tangguh di stage Hard Rock sudah cukup ampuh untuk meyakinkan crowd untuk tetap stay dan menyiapkan diri sesiap-siapnya. Selain words of mouth yang sangat kuat, ternyata keramaian -yang menurut orang Hard Rock lebih ramai daripada malam tahun baru- ini disebabkan karena only in Bali kamu bisa nonton NOFX tanpa tiket. Yup, kamu cuma kena first drink charge arround 30 ribu rupiah, then you get in to the rock show. Why? cos NOFX bermain di Bali tanpa bayaran sama sekali. Gila. According to sumber terpercaya, NOFX yang meminta main di Hard Rock coz jadwal mereka yang seharusnya main di GWK Bali batal, plus some of them emang pengin surfing di Bali. Bahkan NOFX guitarist Eric Melvin sudah pesan papan surfing ke Rizal Tanjung sebulan sebelum they hit Indo [and yes, Rizal and Eric are good friends]. Jadi untuk gig di Bali mereka cuma minta akomodasi,transport dan of course, tons and tons of alcohols. How punkrock was that!

The show begins 11.30 PM saat Hongkong hardcore's King Lychee mulai menggila diatas panggung dengan mohawked-riot grrrl front-women-nya. Arround 1500 kids were kool but enjoying their ol'skool jaw-breaking singles. They were playing 6 songs and I realized that one of the guitarist are bule. Pantesan yang dari tadi ngomong in English cuman dia. Anyway, great stuff, guys. After King Lychee's done and S.I.D's crew were setting the equipments, we were backstage and talking to the guys from King Lychee. Suddenly NOFX came up, they're all seems like a bunch of nice guys, down to earth and nyantai banget, well...maybe except for Fat Mike yang juga ramah tapi agak aneh. Tidak perlu dibantah lagi that he's the chief of the band. We didn't ask for a photograph or something like that coz we know they've been asked for that since the first day they're in Indo.

2.30 PM. Tiba saat giliran S.I.D main, hell yeah, with pride in our hands and angels on our shoulders, we did what we did best and the crowd got our back. Kita mikir sebelumnya -worst case scenario- kita akan disuruh turun after 3 songs or something, tipikal nasib pembuka band internasional. But hey, that's not happening at all so we just kept goin on and on and on. Thank you, kids, for being so supportive. And wow, we saw Fat Mike amongst the crowd in our last 3 songs.Yea, there were mosh pit and pogo while we were playing tapi kita tahu kalau the crowd sebenarnya saving energy for NOFX yang akan main right after S.I.D. Yea man, siapa yang mau kehabisan tenaga pas NOFX hit the stage nanti? Haha. We were playing 8 songs, went backstage [shook Fat Mike's hand after he said "Good job, guys..."] dan setelahnya langsung bersiap-siap kedepan panggung untuk dihajar NOFX. 01.30 AM. Setelah sekitar 15 menit crew NOFX did the fast soundcheck plus sedikit marah-marah cos of some technical probs, here's comes trouble...

NOFX finally on stage and we hardly remember anything but the good times. The sounds was amazing. The mosh and the pogo was ultra-insane! Not only boys, the girls also love to fuel the punkrock ring of fire. Lagu dari almost all of their albums dimainkan with a touching SOUL and a good showmanship -what you hardly get from today's musicians. From speed to reggae to ska to latin-trumpet-fueled-riot. Semua terdengar sempurna diselingi joke-joke sinis khas NOFX. Venue serasa runtuh diserbu bison yang bergembira karena musim panas telah tiba. For almost 2,5 hours NOFX showed us gimana mestinya sebuah band punkrock bermain dan menghibur penonton. Mengundang seorang penonton keatas stage untuk menunjukkan tato Bad religion-nya [coz they thought no.1 punk band in the world is Bad Religion], mocking religions, supporting drinking in public but too bad they didn't say anything about Good Charlotte like they were in Jakarta. Singkat kata, they're awesome, seriously a great live band yang berkarisma. Sangat menghibur. At the end of the show we got smiles on our face, got a few cuts and bruises from the mosh but we were all happy. No fights, no machoism bullcrap, just a genuine good times. Boy, we will never forget that one hot night. Oya, dulu ada cerita lucu. 1 April 1997, pas April Mop, kita bikin berita palsu kalau NOFX akan main di Twice Bar [dulu masih di depan Monumen Bom Bali] dan akan jamming dengan S.I.D. Free. Wah, malamnya itu tempat langsung penuh dengan anak-anak yang percaya akan berita tersebut. Malah ada yang datang dari luar Bali. Haha. We couldn't stop laughing. Setelah kita bilang kalau it's just an April Mop joke, mereka semua cuma bisa ketawa [tapi dalam hati kesel]. Sorry guys but it was all your fault to believe in our joke. Karena banyak yang datang, we were ended up drinking together, talking about NOFX and honestly, we were never thought of NOFX akan main di Bali, apalagi sampai S.I.D jadi pembukanya. It was all just our wish and dreams as punkrock kids. But hey, look at what was happening last night! So boys and girls, be careful with what you wish for, karena suatu saat it might came true....and we Superman Is Dead are so proud to be the one and only Indonesian band yang bisa berbagi panggung dengan NOFX. Thanx to NOFX, the crowds and Mr.Bagus at Hard Rock Cafe Bali.
Cheers, Jrx