Remember when you were a kid and a five-band bill sounded like fun? Well, I don't – that was a long time ago, and now I'm old and my feet hurt.

Grimace's Orifice was up first. You know everything you need to know about the band based on its name alone, but since we're here, this ridiculous eight-piece ensemble straddled punk, hardcore, and metal, offering improvised jams built around simple lyrical themes. "Ectoplasm Orgasm" is about Patrick Swayze. One song only included the lines "That's My Purse" and "I don't know you." "Die, Grimace, Die!" was even less erudite. Sk8bar employee Travis "WuRm" Higgins fronts the group with his death metal growl, while the rest of the octet play everything from standard rock instruments to horns to trash barrels. Some of the troop hailed from Saint Joe. Some were from Kansas City. By eschewing practices, the distance between the cities isn't an issue. WuRm balanced witty banter with requests to "show me your hole." The audience appreciated both – especially the young dude in the Bluey onesie who looked like Charles Manson. When he wasn't pacing, looking like the acid was about to hit, he was using a floppy fabric fish as nunchucks to beat his gleeful co-conspirators in the pit.

Big shift. Lawrence's Drifter followed. Drifter is not zany. Drifter is the opposite of zany. The trio played post-rock that moved from airy interludes to suffocating doom metal. Most of the songs in the thirty-five-minute set came from the band's new album – some of them performed live for only the first or second time. In general, its songs were long, with multiple passages and occasional moments where all three members beat drums as if they were attempting to summon Cthulhu. There was no mosh pit, just scores of music fans nodding in unison, appreciating the power and intricacy of the act's compositions. Sure, the threesome has played tighter sets, and there have been shows where the roared vocals were more ferocious, but I'm not keeping score.

Then came Full Power. This groove metal band formed in '95 in Saint Joe, had a strong run for ten years, then called it quits. Since then, it has only reunited for special occasions. This was a special occasion. The crowd immediately sprang into action. No nunchuckery this time, but plenty of headbanging, and eventually a three-person circle pit erupted. The band performs as a quartet with two guitars. The Ibanez had three pickups. Both guitars chugged ominously during "Perpetual Nightfall." The drumkit had a thousand cymbals. The bassist got crabcore low. The singer made Korn noises. A cover of Prong's "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck" illustrated the project's allegiances. The singer seemed genuinely happy to be on stage and was thrilled by the response received from the filling room. However, I did furrow my brow when the singer introduced a song titled "Pico De Gallo" with a story that went like this: "In Saint Joe there's not a lot to do, so one of our favorite pastimes is eating Mexican food." Buddy, that's one of the best things to do anywhere on God's green earth. In fact, I'm gonna go get me a tlacoyo now.

Then we hit From This Day Forward. Again, another project whose name tells you most everything you need to know. While a perennial favorite of Sk8bar, this time the band arrived as direct support for the headliner. What an odd pairing. The act was touring as a four-piece (vox, guitar, guitar, drums – no bass). It's screamo, but trap rhythms played between numbers, added intriguing elements to several songs, and were given center stage during a cover of T.I.'s "Whatever You Like." The group rocked the MySpace aesthetic starting with chunked scene hair and working its way past the white belts and skinny jeans down to the puffy Osiris-styled skate shoes. It brought an impressive light show that augmented the lackluster red and green cannons hung from the club's curiously professional new lighting rig. In the end, the show was all energy. So much bouncing. So much performative camp. So much vocal fry. And so many audience members dancing along to new song "My PO Lets Me Smoke Delta-8." That PO sounds dope.

And then there was Green Jellö. For legal reasons they're Green Jellÿ, but that's only because of Kraft, and I will not legitimize the decision of any court that is aligned with plastic-wrapped singles. In preparation for the merry pranksters, the club lighting rig came down. Every possible room light was turned off as well. Dozens of inflatables (some pool toys and some extraordinarily large lawn ornaments) were piled onto the stage. Hundreds of pool noodles were dumped atop the audience. Frontman Bill Manspeaker stood on a chair he dubbed the "look at me" chair, and shouted directions to the sound man ("Make me louder!"), the fans ("Noodles in the air!" and "Take 300 steps forward!"), and his musical compatriots. Who was in his band? Excellent question. Who knows. There were at least eight people on the stage. Some were longtime collaborators. Some (like the rapper that began the set) were described as a hanger-on who somehow conned his way onto the bus. From the crowded stage, and under a hail of inflatables and chucked pool noodles, the group delivered an assortment of comedy songs that merged rock, metal, and punk. Each ended with a "Green Jellö sucks" chant. One consisted of little more than its "Me and your mother / we have sex with each other / and now I'm your stepdad" refrain. One retold the story of the three little pigs replete with a monster riff that, inexplicably, made the single a worldwide top ten hit in the summer of 1993. During that number, audience members were recruited to wear the elaborate paper mache masks of the pigs. Costumes were key throughout. During a cover of "Anarchy in the UK," when Manspeaker instead sang "I want to be Fred Flintstone," a costumed Fred danced on stage. A large bovine joined the fray at one point, and the audience was instructed to worship the cow god. Was that when the ring around the rosie happened? Maybe. Was that when Manspeaker ordered the audience to beat someone with pool noodles? Who can say? Maybe it was all just a fever dream of happy destruction in the dark.

Surprisingly, and in some sort of Grinchian twist, even after standing through four bands on hard concrete, I found the verve to bat inflatables about the room recklessly, to swing my pool noodle indiscriminately, to take the oath of the "punk rock pool noodle army," and to help toss the giant Buc-ee when Manspeaker demanded we "Make the beaver fly!" Ponce De Leon didn't need to traipse all over, looking for the fountain of youth – he could have just hung out in Kansas City and waited for the Green Jellö bus to stop at Sk8bar. It worked for me, and it will work for you too!