Rufio

The house lights dim and then a very familiar exert is played over the in house system. It is kids shouting “Rufio, Rufio, Rufio…” and then I realize it is the part of the film Hook (1999), when the children in Neverland, are chanting Rufio’s name before he makes his entrance. This is what the California pop punk band Rufio use at the start of their set and at the start of their song “Above Me”, which sees singer, Scott Sellers, play a riff at breakneck speed to open the song. All of the other members join in playing at the same pace. There is a mosh pit at every corner of the crowd at this festival and the audience is like sardines crammed into this small space to watch Rufio. One of the things that I was completely unaware of is that Rufio are also acrobats, they do guitar flips, which is when one, spins their guitar around their body extremely quickly, which is a sort of “don’t try this at home” kind of move with about a 60% success rate due to guitar necks breaking of at the 5th fret, bassist Jon Berry executes multiple bass flips throughout that show, not to mention this insane ninja back roll that he does (still bass clad) over guitarist Mike Jimenez. Such an exciting band to watch! Their set closes with their most well known song, “White Lights” in which, the audience sing along to, skanking along in true pop punk fashion. Such an exciting band to watch indeed!