The wave of Californian punk rock in the 1990s wouldn’t have existed without them: Hellfest welcomes The Offspring for a furious show, all saturated guitars and snide criticism of a lethargic American society.

They’re one of California’s finest punk rockers, alongside Nofx, Green Day and Rancid, direct descendants of Nirvana’s protest grunge. The Offspring, founded in 1984 by Dexter Holland, exploded ten years later with the album Smash, considered by many to be the cornerstone of the punk revolution. In its wake, a new musical genre, sometimes referred to as skate punk, swept across the airwaves, imposing its own distinctive codes on teenagers in the 1990s and 2000s. With earphones in their ears, ripped jeans, metal chains and frosted hair, a whole generation fell in love with their frenetic riffs and their penchant for snide protest. On one of the two main stages at Hellfest 2024, the near-sixties of The Offspring perform the best of their repertoire, including the famous “Come Out and Play”, “Why Don’t You Get a Job?” and “The Kids Aren’t Alright”, from the 1998 album Americana, which in thirteen tracks spits out the vision of a lethargic America before the terrible awakening of 9/11 and the Bush years.