The first day is always exciting and it’s the level of
anticipation that gets you through the hell of queuing to get in. “Doors open
11” really means “doors might open at 11, but we’re in no actual rush and due to
our new full cavity search policy you’ll be lucky if you get inside by 12:30”.
Luckily I escaped a gloved-fingered probing and made it in
after enduring a busker’s horrific version of Bee Gees hit, Tragedy. Seemingly
you can do the opposite of polishing a turd with relative ease.
This year’s wristbands are an I’m-very-comfortable-with-my-masculinity-ta-very-much
shocking pink and once that was put on me just slightly too tight to be
considered comfortable I was prowling around the venue like a lion and t-shirts
were my gazelles. Or something.
I wandered in to the new and improved new band stage where I
was the only one watching a band called Dirt Royal.
“That was just our sound check,” said the guitarist. “Do we
sound alright.”
“Err, yeah,” I said. They didn’t.
I moved on. Pussycat Kill were just starting. There were
timing issues and tuning issues. It wasn’t going well.
I bumped into some friends and set about catching up and
knocking back a couple of nostalgic Newcastle Brown Ales at a wallet-shrivelling
£4.50 a bottle.
The new Tower Street Arena was outside, behind the shopping
centre. The stage looked amazing with Blackpool Tower behind it and the sun
beginning to peer at us from behind the clouds. The open air, not-shielded-at-all
plastic urinal thing in the corner was only for the use of pissing daredevils
and there were two chemical toilets for normal people in the opposite corner
that were remarkably unsoiled, even after a few hours.
Hobo Jones and the Junkyard Dogs were on. Sort of crusty, folky
hippy-types, they did some Ramones and Levellers stuff, slagged off Bob Geldof
and joked about events staff all wearing the same outfit.
The Cundeez followed. They wore kilts and there were
bagpipes to illustrate their Scottishness, doing nothing to smash national
stereotypes. “Turn the subtitles on,” yelled one boozed-up Cockerney goon. Anyway
they delivered a fairly solid set before going back to their dressing room and
eating deep-fried Mars Bars.
Geoffrey Oicott delivered their humorous songs about
cricket, darts and beer and risked angering the weather gods by selling their
own sunglasses.
Ted Dibiase and the Million Dollar Punk Band were good, but
not great. Their drummer who looked like the bloke who wrote the Game of
Thrones books had been replaced by a youngster with a newspaper ink smear
moustache and he didn’t know all the songs yet, so their set was a little
brief.
The big guns were about to be wheeled out. Flag rattled
through 24 songs in about 43 minutes (call Norris McWhirter), Peter and the
Test Tube Babies made us laugh and the Bouncing Souls whoa-ohed their way
through nearly an hour.
But on to the highlight, not only of Rebellion 2016, but of
everything ever.
The Descendents.
They’ve been one of my favourite bands forever and this was
the first chance I’d ever had to see them. To say I was a little bit excited
would be underegging it and be like describing Donald Trump as a little bit of
a twat.
They played their old favourites and some new ones that will
rapidly become favourites. They dusted off a few that don’t always get an
airing and they played some of the short, fast songs faster than they ever
have. 2000+ of us sang along with every word.
Soon it had been an hour and after Thank You and their
self-titled anthem rounded it off, we wandered out into the night air of
Blackpool where it smelled of kebabs and failure.
On to day 2…
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