Rebellion, Blackpool (Saturday): Festival Review

Rebellion Festival
Blackpool Winter Gardens
Thu 1st – Sun 4th August

The Punk Village descends on Blackpool’s Winter Gardens for another year of Rebellion, celebrating the thriving scene which will never die, with four days of legends and newcomers taking over for diehards and the young kids in an experience like no other. Wayne AF Carey covers as much as possible on the Friday and Saturday nights…

Saturday: Nandos, Nazis, Erotica and Bad Manners.

After a morning bumble around the infamous Coral Island arcade and coming out a tenner up, I get rumours from our punk stalwart Ged Babey that the EDL are gonna be in town. Being at a punk festival this doesn’t faze me one bit, and we get in at doors open to catch a young group called Lady Rage who accosted me with a flyer the day before proclaiming to be the best new band around. Consisting of Siren Sycho, NIKA, TGP and Dee Chi Manic, they whip up their own mini storm as the opening act in the Empress Ballroom. It’s a nice set of punk metal from a young group who are honing their craft, and even have a bit of fun with a couple of drinking games with the large crowd that have gathered for their first innings. They’ve certainly won me over, especially with their metal cover of Girls Aloud’s Sound Of The Underground. A great start to the day.

I’ve heard controversial things about Pizzatramp so head towards Club Casbah to check out the fuss, and I’ve hit the jackpot again. Jimmy the vocalist and Sammy Two Cabs on bass are the masters of banter and have the crowd in stitches from the start, with a song about Tom Cruise and his small cock, a riot of a speech that would have our man John Robb pissing his sides when they introduce Millions Of Dead Goths, a thundering DIY tune. An excellent Clairvoyant, then a medley of three second songs, one after the other, with This Song Is Fuckin’ Shit, proclaiming Frank Turner is fuckin’ shit and a paedo, Dave Grohl is fuckin’ shit, plus numerous others. He then pukes up on stage and promises to shit on stage if Rebellion have them back next year. A great finish as the provocatively titled Bono Is a Fuckin’ C**t wins us all over and we leave with big grins on our faces.

I head over to the Rebellion Introducing stage back in The Pavilion and find another gem, Dog Of Man, who impress from the start, consisting of Mike, Ben and Jak from Stroud (minus their guitarist who has a throat infection, who they take the piss out of). They stun us all with the wizardry of Mike on his electric accordion which emulates a guitar, and blow me away with tracks like Chaos Reigns, Lurking In The Overnight Bag and Taxi. He has the voice of Cud and Cocker, yet lets out guttural screams that come from nowhere. A great new group in the making.

It’s like a greenhouse in here right now, and after checking out a bit of Boggy Formby and Tim Holehouse doing their acoustic thing to a packed Old Vic, I deck outside for a food pit stop. Nando’s looks good. Just when I’m enjoying a bit of piri piri, a crew of bellend teenagers run past the window wrapped in England flags, closely followed by the bill, then a few adults with rather long arms and one eyebrow, then more bill, a riot van. I shit you not. It’s kicking off up the road and the doors are shut as the staff start to panic. They disappear after another five minutes (I hear later they tried to take St John’s Square and were run out of town by the punks) and we leave to get back to the venue. It’s a good job as well, as we are locked in half an hour later due to some stupid fucks trying to get in through the smoking area. Have they got a deathwish or something and are they really that thick trying to get into a punk festival? It would have gone down as The Rebellion Right Wing Massacre…

Next up is to check out Interrobang‽ in The Opera House for a few songs as I’m curious to see some of Gimp Fist, judging by the amount of t-shirts that pass me by. Dunstan Bruce and Stephen Griffin backed by newly installed drummer Neil Turpin are your perfect double act of over 50s angst, and arrive on stage with their white megaphones, spilling out a provocative political message which is injected with pure comedy from intelligent minds. Dunstan likes to let us know his name is Dunstan Bruce over and over again, as if we don’t know him already. We do now. Suited and booted they perform an exciting set, with Griffin switching from keyboards to a crunching guitar with ease on a wave of Turpin’s drums. Tingling stuff indeed.

Gimp Fist are swiftly becoming a massive deal in the punk world judging by this crowd. It’s rammed and people want some from the Bishop Auckland crew. Their tunes are huge, anthemic, punk and loud, all the ingredients you need to win over a festival like this. They’re nothing new and don’t try to be clever. Just good old street punk with a skinhead heart.

We’re all still locked in for the time being and I head back to Club Casbah for the excellent Benefits fronted by the ball of anger Kingsley Hall who has more reasons to be angry than anyone, considering the subject matter of his material, matched with what’s happening outdoors (I later find out his mates are locked outside). I’m fuckin’ annoyed myself that the room isn’t as full as it should be for obvious reasons, yet I’m cheered up by the obviously E’d up punks dancing at the front to the likes of Warhorse and the seering rage of Flag with the hip hop beat that goes down a storm. The rage coming from Kingsley is intense and he’s obviously slightly fucked off with the uneasy and confused non participation from the crowd when he spits “What can you do?” Set of the day for me.

Manchester’s Loose Articles are on in the Ballroom, kicking off with Mr Manager from their debut album, with Natalie stage centre underneath their Stella-influenced logo, attempting to rev up the crowd. It’s again disappointing about the lockdown as there could be more here, as Natalie cries out “Where are you? Where are you?” trying to make light of it. A bit of a comedown from Foo Fighters, yet they produce a tight set and get a nice response from those who made the effort. Positive battlers until the end. Back at the Almost Acoustic stage it’s rammed for punk legend TV Smith who’s joined up with Vom Ritchie for a classic set of songs including the usual Gary Gilmour’s Eyes, Bored Teenager and One Chord Wonders, topping it off with a bit of spoken word from Atilla The Stockbroker who addresses the balloons outside and performs The Lion & The Lamb in a duet on his fiddle, to the delight of the people who recognise the status of world class songwriting. It’s a hot and sweaty affair, which is only exacerbated by half an hour of raucous singalongs and fists thumping the air.

Next up are the band I’ve been buzzing about all day, Erotic Secrets Of Pompei, who have easily created one of LTW’s albums of the year, according to our punk on the streets Ged Babey, reviewed here. They enter the stage all dressed in red velvet suits, with Thomas Hawtin looking uncannily like The Joker with that menacing grin and wild stare as he launches into the set. It’s a small turnout in The Pavilion for a band this great which seems to grow midway through the set, yet who cares when you’re watching with the likes of Dunstan Bruce, who looks mightily impressed with what’s unravelling. Utterly Rudderless is majestic and sounds massive live, as does the excellently titled Osiris At The Large Hadron Collider. Auguries And Auguries just screams of goth theatre, and the band are enjoying every bit of this as much as our lucky audience. A band destined to be massive? I’m fuckin’ putting my money on it…

As the night is getting shorter I head to The Casbah Stage yet again to tick off my 2 Tone bucket list and witness a band from my youth, Bad Manners, ready to rip up the stage. I’ve been reading Daniel Rachel’s book recently, Too Much Too Young, and the live scene at that time raises my hopes that this will be epic. It certainly is and the anticipation is hair raising (unless you’re Buster Bloodvessel). They enter the stage to a massive round of applause and the party starts with a set full of skanking tunes, including a storming version of My Girl Lollipop which has even the knackered ones dancing around like maniacs. Special Brew bring joyous tears to my eyes and they sound like I remember them those many years back in the ’80s. There are nine people on stage and they’re all tuned in like naturals, especially when Lip Up Fatty and Lorraine are aired. Buster leaves the stage a couple of times for a break and the band just jam together with an easy flow. The Can Can has everyone going mental and it’s the party set of the whole day when you’ve been assaulted by punk for two days. The funkiest group of the whole Rebellion party.

The positive points I get from Rebellion are these:

1. When you go to events that hold large indie bands you get a hostile ‘hooligan’ vibe with dubious pints being thrown at frequent interviews. None of that here. And the gobbing went out of fashion decades ago.
2. If you bump into someone by accident you get a polite exchange from a big fucker with an Anti Nowhere League / GBH jacket on without getting a black eye or a broken nose.
3. The age difference between fans is staggering and it feels like you’re in a loving family no matter what you’re wearing and it’s multi cultural and diverse as fuck.
4. Punk was always associated with hating hippies, yet the general feel of all this is peace. I’ve not witnessed one bit of violence in two long days. I’ve never felt so safe and surrounded by proper humans with a brain cell or two.

~

Photos by Phil Thorns (except where otherwise stated), see his Instagram 

Words by Wayne Carey, Reviews Editor for Louder Than War. His author profile is here