See NOFX’s Final Live Performances: ‘We Did It Our Way’

More than four decades after forming in Los Angeles, trendsetting punk-rock firebrands NOFX played their final concerts this past weekend in nearby San Pedro, California as part of their Punk in Drublic Festival. The group’s last-ever concert on Sunday included guest appearances by Rancid’s Tim Armstrong, Bad Religion’s Brett Gurewitz and Jay Bentley, and the Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflett, who once played alongside NOFX’s Fat Mike in Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, among others.

The band’s penultimate tune was one they’d never performed live before or even released: “We Did It Our Way,” a self-referential rewrite of the Frank Sinatra classic. “This is a song we went over in the trailer, and you didn’t remember it,” frontman Fat Mike told guitarist Aaron “El Hefe” Abeyta before playing it. “Oh right,” Abeyta said. Mike then described the tune as their thank you to fans and everyone onstage. After some mawkish opening chords, the band launched into a typically driving punk song and Mike narrated the history of the band, about when he met guitarist Eric Melvin in 1983, and how “since then we’ve been brothers.” And the song closed with the sentimental lyrics, “If it wasn’t for all of you, we couldn’t have done it our way.”

They ended the concert with aplomb by playing the nearly 20-minute 1999 prog-punk mini-opera, “The Decline.” About 14 minutes into the performance, the group’s many friends and guests flooded the stage with their instruments for an IMAX-worthy sendoff complete with a brass section. Unsurprisingly, the concert ended with smashed instruments, hugs, and a lot of applause onstage.

Before the song, Fat Mike said his goodbyes. “This is it, everyone, this is the last [song],” he said. “Thank you so much [for] all your love. We’re not doing a fucking Black Sabbath [reunion]. You have no idea the gratitude we have. Thank you all.”

“You’re here, you’re fucking really here,” Melvin said. “Oh, my God. Thank you!”

The performance capped off three nights of marathon sets that saw the group playing alongside their peers, idols, and followers. The final day of the festival included performances by Pennywise, the Vandals, Codefendants, Frank Turner, Subhumans, Fishbone, and others.

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“This is not a final tour like Mötley Crüe or Black Sabbath,” Fat Mike said in a 2023 statement. “These are the very last shows NOFX will ever be playing. We are gonna play with all our hearts… With all our joy… And then we are done. We are done done.”

The band bid farewell with a number of Instagram posts, including one that showed a band huddle and the words, “Gratitude. Thank you.” And then of course, there’s “The Final Photo”: