The Meffs & Carsick
Th Garage, London
29th January 2025
Essex duo The Meffs return to London to perform their biggest headline show to date. Keith Goldhanger (Words) and Paul Grace (Photos) report on a raucous night out.
If one could suggest that Lambrini Girls are the sound of UK Punk Rock made in 2025 and defining 2025 then The Meffs are probably the sound of Punk Rock in 1981 made in 2025.
Both bands communicate similar messages at the current time however two different audiences seem to exist.
Tonight, a more mature Meffs crowd wearing their Meffs Merchandise (Dead Kennedy, Subhumans, Damned T-shirts etc…) are here to celebrate and participate in the Essex duo’s largest headline show to date. It’s a rowdy affair that begins with Wiltshire band Carsick who it could be said are recreating (probably a little bit better) the sound that Jamie T once provided us with two decades ago. Punk Rock Rap vocals are delivered with venom are served up to the appreciative early arrivals who are persuaded to participate in an early evening circle pit.
The first drinks of the evening are spilled.
The Meffs’ set of songs tonight are also short and sharp that get directly to the point, with tracks from their debut (Frank Turner Produced) album, What a Life, and a Prodigy cover of Breathe that arrives a few tunes in that seems to get the enthusiastic front rows moving. Before long, those same people are starting to lose their shit even more by forming a wall of death, engaging in some encouraged crowd surfing and a huge stage invasion that one imagines may not be possible once the band start playing at even larger venues in the capital.
Britain still needs fixing of course. Maybe even more than it did four decades ago however we have Punk Rock bands now coming at us from all angles. The aforementioned Lambrini Girls with their young raucous crowd, The Meffs reminding an older generation of the injustices we still face in the world today, Bob Vylan, Amyl and the Sniffers, Sprints, Meryl Streek, Benefits, Frank Carter, Frank Turner … All containing individuals that could probably sit in a room together and agree with each other on what’s going on in the big wide world whilst watching their respective audiences grow.
Tonight is old school three chord thrash Punk Rock (this being a turn of phrase nowadays and not meant to be taken literally) made by an energetic young duo that will continue to encourage people to do the right things, think the right things, change the wrong things and hopefully encourage an even younger generation to start Punk Rock bands to convey similar messages if the need to state what some of us feel is simply the bleedin’ obvious still needs shouting about. The Meffs do this well, they keep the fires burning, we all get to shout Fuck Donald Trump and be reminded about how much inequality still exists in the world and how it needs to change.
They may not be providing us with sounds we’ve not already heard before but they’re an important band for the UK to accommodate in this century. A century that appears to be giving birth to newer and greater problems than ever and a century when who knows what could happen. Punk Rock in 2025 may come in many flavours but the messages still remain the same and delivered at speed by the good guys.
And these are certainly the good guys.
Follow The Meffs: Website, Instagram, Facebook
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Words by Keith Goldhanger. More writing by Keith on Louder Than War can be found at his author’s archive. You can also find Keith on Facebook Instagram and Bluesky
All photos © Paul Grace. For more of Paul’s writing and photos go to his archive. Paul is on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and his websites are www.paulgrace-eventphotos.co.uk & www.pgrace.co.uk
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