No Age, Band in Heaven Perform at Art Basel Miami Beach

One of the more anticipated satellite art fairs this year during Art Basel Miami Beach was the totally independent Fountain Art Fair, which took over an abandoned warehouse and lot at the edges of the city's mainland Wynwood industrial district. But while Fountain may be independent, it's not amateur hour.

The fair must have dangled a considerable chunk of cash at Friday-night headliners No Age, considering the duo's scheduled show there was just a one-off squished into the middle of a tour of the Southwest. The band had played the previous night in New Mexico, canceled its scheduled date in Tempe, Arizona, and was slated to fly back to the west the following day.

This made it particularly frustrating, then, when it seemed like it wouldn't go down properly after all. Wisely, for a late-running week of events in a late-running city, Fountain didn't schedule No Age to play until 11PM, just before the outdoor fair's ostensible noise curfew.

This gave ample time to check out the fair itself, whose highlights included booths from Brooklyn galleries like McCaig-Welles, and, again, open rum and beer bars. (With this, plus another year of $10 admission for an individual night, Fountain was among the most generous of the fairs.) It also meant a later time slot and more eyeballs for local-ish band, the Band in Heaven, who hail from West Palm Beach and waved the post-punk/No Wave high with both their originals and a cover of Q. Lazzarus' 'Goodbye Horses.'

But they finished before 10PM, and with the clock ticking, confusion erupted when, at 11, a performance-art troupe commandeered the courtyard and the stage. Dressed as some kind of feathered bird/aborigine mash-up, the troupe conducted a confusing fake art auction that involved a cardboard Duchamp replica being torched. No Age, somewhat helplessly, tried to set up its equipment behind the fake auctioneer, who refused to move. The piece dragged on for more than 30 minutes, as fans yelled for the artists to shut up and the band to play.

Finally, when they disappeared, No Age and its small road crew scrambled to finish a last-minute soundcheck, testing chords ringing through crackly monitors until, finally, they appeared to abandon it and just play. "We're No Age from California," announced drummer/singer Dean Allan Spunt. "Let's burn this shit down!" It was now 11:48PM.

With just 12 minutes to go, the band ripped into its trademark pogo-punk drums and scuzzy power chords, made all the scuzzier by the murky P.A. Spunt, seemed particularly interested in getting the crowd going post haste, requesting fewer cameras in the crowd after the first song. "I feel like I'm on a catwalk up here," he said. "How about you, like, take one picture, and then party?"

That was all the hint anyone needed. No Age shows are a self-fulfilling prophecy, after all -- they're known for being crazy, so people come to get crazy. With a heavy teenage boy contingent here for the all-ages show, that meant the grass in front of the low stage turned quickly into a dance pit, which threatened to bubble over at a few points but never actually turned violent. No Age's music is just too good-natured for all that, which helped to temper the testosterone waves created by its live covers of GG Allin's 'Don't Talk to Me' and the Gun Club's 'Sex Beat.'

And, at midnight, the music was still going. And for a good chunk of minutes after that, each seeming more precious. With dust flying in the air, bodies propelling off the stage and into the crowd, and the P.A. speaker stacks threatening to topple over, the sound was finally cut off, mid-song, at precisely 12:33AM. It was a fittingly chaotic way for a No Age show to end, though. Damn the man.

Listen to No Age's cover of GG Allin's 'Don't Talk To Me'