Kevin Bronson on April 20th, 2009

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As Coachella on Sunday reverted to its familiar (and reliably ticket-selling) fallback position – best-of-the-1980s headliner – it was left to the kids to cut some edges. And in the 100-plus-degree heat of the Mojave Tent, that’s what”  Vivian Girls, No Age and F’ked Up set out to do. The verdict? The kids are all right, and it’s not just the kids who think so.

None other than Bob Mould was sidestage for the latter two sets – “They’re both really amazing,” he told me when I bumped into him later – bobbing his head to No Age’s angular noise-pop and F’ked Up’s hard-core agit-punk. No Age, the L.A. duo of Dean Spunt and Randy Randall, never quite brought the tent to a boil but rewarded their faithful early arrivals with a couple moments of gee-whiz thrash. It was the Canadian sextet F’ked Up that blew the roof off the place. (For the record, Vivian Girls continue their amazing run of being perfunctory.)

Vocalist/screamer Pink Eyes (born Damian Abraham) opened up a gash on his forehead during the first song (I think it was on the drum kit), and the blood flowed freely for four songs or so. The mess neither darkened his mood nor tempered his stage antics. Shirtless, he roamed the photo pit, climbed the scaffolding and dove in with his adoring fans as more bodies crowd-surfed towards him. “Don’t worry,” he said of the blood, “I’ve been tested! I’m negative!”

Pink Eyes is a teddy bear of a man, if you can imagine a teddy bear who drops the F-bomb every other lyric. He preaches from the “anti-douchebag” pulpit, and his similarly outsider fans love him for it. And although there have been moshing-related injuries at F’ked Up’s shows before, Pink Eyes is a polite Canadian through and through. During the set he frequently assisted crowd-surfers over the front barrier, he reprimanded one frisky fellow for fondling a female crowd-surfer as she was passed over, he thanked security personnel for “being cool, because we’ve had shows shut down,” and he found and tried to return one crowd surfer’s car keys. “I’ll be doing autographs in an hour,” he said, “if I’m not in the hospital.”

He poked fun at his own girth too, but by the end of his band’s 50 minutes he had to have dropped 20 pounds. No Age’s Spunt and Randall emerged at the end to help F’ked Up cover Black Flag’s “Nervous Breakdown.” The blood had stopped flowing by then, but not the energy. More images:

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Between No Age and F’ked Up, I was able to encircle the Gobi Tent, which overflowed with sweaty bodies pumping to the dance music of the U.K.’s Friendly Fires. Exhilarating stuff, their music, even in the stifling heat. Give this band a fancy light show at a couple more songs like “Paris,” “Lovesick” and “Photobooth” and they will be ready for a main stage.