There were still a handful of bands to tick off my list and
another few to check out speculatively.
First on the agenda were Healthy Junkies. Straight away I
was unimpressed by the fact that their vocalist, a young woman of possibly 20
(she could have been anything between 14 and 30 to be honest; it’s difficult to
tell), was being used to sell t-shirts that had a backprint of an actual photograph
of her on them. The room also seemed to be disproportionately full of men by
themselves who were looking at her in a creepy fashion. The final nail in their
coffin was a terrible ballad they started before I escaped whoch had weak lyrics and even weaker guitar playing.
Louise Distras was one I’d looked forward to and we were let
down. This was no fault of hers. I’m sure she sounded very good, but everything
was echoing too much. Too few people in the ballroom or the old chestnut, “technical
difficulties”? I’m not sure, but three songs was all my ears were able to stomach.
The hasty exit meant I was able to see the Popes of Chillitown
instead. They were very energetic and helped fill in some of the blanks on my
ska bingo card by exclaiming “pick it up” and “rude boy” at various intervals.
There was the most energetic moshpit I’ve ever seen at a ska gig which was
being led by a man in some sort of religious attire (bishop? cardinal? not a pope
though). It wasn’t clear whether or not he was affiliated with the band in any
way.
From one ska band to another and Citizen Fish were playing
in the blazing sunshine. Socially aware and fun, they had hangovers well and
truly shifted. Some people danced and those who don’t dance (such as myself)
tapped their feet and nodded their heads more vigorously than usual. There were
a lot more people watching them than you might expect and that’s because…
Dirt Box Disco were on next. The arena wasn’t full to
capacity, but it won’t have been far off. The crowd were immediately eating out
of their hands and crowdsurfing was encouraged, one youngster managing a fairly
impressive distance. Inappropriate gags were made and inappropriate songs were sung. One
lucky child who was wearing a Spunk Volcano balaclava was invited on stage to
pretend to play with them and a little girl sang with them a bit. Questionable parental
judgement was involved in allowing this to happen, but they seemed to have fun.
Actually it’s impossible to say from a distance whether a 6-year-old in a
balaclava is smiling or crying. It was a great show though, possibly the best
Dirt Box performance I’ve ever witnessed.
Due to stopping for a lasagne break I only caught one song
by the Adolescents. Kids from the Black Hole sounded great and made me wish I’d
not bothered eating. Who am I kidding? It was bloody good lasagne.
And then on to what would be my final band of the weekend, Agnostic
Front. The godfathers of New York Hardcore. If you weren’t aware that they were
from New York, Roger Miret happily tells you they are between every song. If
you weren’t aware they were a hardcore band, he handily mentions that constantly
too. He’s probably never heard of SEO. Guitarist Vinnie Stigma was quite possibly on
something and he held his guitar aloft while the other guitarist – Craig Silverman
who never gets any credit despite keeping it all afloat – kept it all afloat. But let’s
not pretend they weren’t good because they were actually fucking excellent. An
hour of hardcore anthems passed by incredibly quickly and there was even a
Ramones cover.
And then I disappeared into the night to hibernate for 361
days before I do it all again.
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