Built to Last

London was apparently founded in the year 50. Curiously this is now the exact price in pounds for a pint at the Kentish Town Forum. More or less.

I was there on Sunday to haemorrhage cash at an alarming rate while I partook of the Persistence Tour, an afternoon/evening hardcore/punk/metal/crossover mini-festival of sorts.

This year, the line-up was fairly diverse and promised everything from melodic punk singalongs to doomy, noise-based shoutathons.

To start, we were treated to Take Offense, who were onstage before everyone was even inside the venue. They were a bog-standard hardcore band who didn’t wow anyone much and I mostly took offence at the spelling of their name.

Russia’s Siberian Meat Grinder were next on the bill. I’d been looking forward to seeing them for some time and this was their first ever UK show. SMG are a crossover band, meaning they are a blend of hardcore and metal, which is like the musical equivalent of a pint of strong IPA with a double whisky chaser. The singer wore some kind of leather mask and I thought it was just a gimmick, but apparently he needs to keep his identity hidden because he has said some controversial things about shirtless bear-riding-enthusiast, Vlad Putin, and fears imprisonment, death or worse. Their half hour was brought to a close with the excellent Hail to the Tsar and I even coughed up £20 for one of their t-shirts. I guy I spoke to about them afterwards mistakenly called them Bavarian Meat Grinder, which would make an excellent lederhosen and oompah-based tribute act.

Next were punk band, Booze and Glory, and female-fronted hardcore outfit, Walls of Jericho. Both of these bands were a bit painting-by-numbers and I filled the time they were playing by drinking insane amounts of Guinness with my mate Ricky from Norn Iron.

And then it was the turn of the big guns. Ignite might be “too melodic” for some people, but some people are wrong. They were better than when they played in Blackpool a few years back. I was introduced to one of the guys from the band later – can’t remember which one, but it definitely wasn’t the singer – and I slurred some nonsense at him. The introduction was done by Gareth and Alice from Darlington’s In Evil Hour. They were also drunk, but they both remembered me from a review I wrote of their Built on Our Backs EP some years back, a review which they thought was better than they deserved. See, I’m not always an utter bastard.

Crossover champions Municipal Waste were next in line. This band is amazing and they’re like DRI, if DRI could have ever been arsed to progress. The thing is, I really like DRI, but these guys blow them clean out of the water. They rattled through a series of fast songs from their back catalogue, spanning what is now getting on for two decades. When they announced “we’re just going to play two more songs,” everything was fine. It was fine until it became apparent that one of those songs wasn’t Unleash the Bastards. How could they not play their best song? It’s like Nuclear Assault not playing Hang the Pope or The Wurzels not playing I’ve Got a Brand New Combine Harvester. This took the shine off the performance somewhat.

Godfathers of Grindcore – a phrase I used myself in conversation with a total stranger and then heard someone else using later – Napalm Death were only on the tour for the London date and it was a real treat to finally get to see them. They played the world’s shortest song, You Suffer, and then filled the rest of their set with longer and more ballad-like material. The blink-and-you-miss-it warp-speed cover of Nazi Punks, Fuck Off was a highlight and reminded everyone present that fascists are always cunts, just in case anyone had forgotten.

Sick Of It All are always good. It’s almost boring how good they are. They could turn up and sing the phone book and it would be good, to be honest. They must have played 30 songs in the 50 minutes or so they were onstage. I’m a little uncertain because I was quite drunk by this point. They definitely played my personal favourites Good Looking Out and Busted and they did that daft Wall of Death thing where the audience are split down the middle and then encouraged to run into each other.

For a little over £30, the eight bands on this bill represented amazing value for money. And as usual there was entertainment provided by people who I talked to: the guy from Bristol who really thought he could get back to Paddington to catch his train at 23:10 if he stayed until the end, the guy who once played spoons onstage with Chas and Dave, the guy handing out flyers who accidentally gave me two and then snatched one back because “they cost money”, and the Australian guys who joked (or was it serious?) that they spent Australia Day in Walkabout and then had a barbecue.

And given that hardcore is generally such a bro thing and that there have been allegations of misogyny within the hardcore scene, it was good to see so many bitches at the show.