I Want to Be Stereotyped, I Want to Be Classified

The opportunity to see the Descendents play their one and only UK show of 2017 wasn't one I was about to pass up. Sadly plenty of others did as it was moved from the Brixton Academy to the smaller Kentish Town Forum due to poor ticket sales.

I warmed up nicely for it by chucking half a dozen beers down the hatch with my mate Joe who I hadn't seen in years and then sitting on a bus for half an hour whilst desperately needing a piss.

Abandoning the bus in favour of a toilet I then journeyed to Kentish Town in an underground cylinder, packed to the gills with terrified-looking people.

Once back above ground I spied a pub which seemed to be acting as a punk-magnet and ventured inside.

Now, pubs close to music venues must relish the nights when there are events on because it gives them a chance to boost their trade a bit. This pub – I won't name and shame them mostly because I was too drunk to take notice of the name – had other ideas. It was minimally staffed and those that were moving around behind the bar would have made a sloth look like Usain Bolt. A quick headcount revealed I was 6^th in the queue, which by my reckoning would result in me getting served some time in 2020. Eventually my turn came and I made an executive decision to order two drinks so I wouldn't have to queue again. Two double Jack and Cokes, £18. Yes, you read that correctly. That was my t-shirt money spent.

I bumped into childhood metal idol and all round good egg, H from Acid Reign, who was happy to chat with me for five minutes and pose for a photo before informing me I was “in the top 5 of least-drunk Acid Reign fans who've ever accosted me”.

And so to the venue. My ticket was for the balcony which pissed me off. A nice woman who worked at the venue told me that I could move downstairs if I wanted because it wasn't sold out. Unbelievable. One UK show this year from a band who laid the foundations for most of modern punk and 2,300 tickets hadn't even sold.

A support act were on when I got in there and a brief chat with several people told me the general consensus was that Abrasive Wheels were “absolute shite”.

But nobody was here to see them. We wanted the Descendents and at about 9:30 we got them.

Milo ranted about “orange asshole” Donald Trump before the roof was damn near torn off the place with Everything Sux.

I was relieved of almost a fiver for a Guinness and then thrown into an impromptu moshpit with two sweaty Australians and a bearded Norwegian.

The songs came thick and fast and as a result of the serious booze intake it all blurred into an hour-and-a-half-long medley of amazing hits although in which order they were played I can't be sure. There was something from every album from a career spanning nearly four decades and I can be sure that it was fucking brilliant, that much I do remember.

We all sang along and raised our plastic glasses (or are they just called 'plastics'?) in the air. Strangers bounced around and hugged one another. 2,000 people enjoyed the kind of camaraderie you'd be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.

I spoke to a guy who looked a lot like Ed Sheeran. His mate told me it actually was Ed Sheeran. So I asked potential Ed Sheeran if he was in fact Ed Sheeran. No, he informed me, he wasn't Ed Sheeran. He did tell me his friend was an idiot who had come all the way from Peru, to which said mate responded with an obviously Peruvian accent: “Dude, I came from fucking Balham.” Good times.

The official setlist shows that they played a mammoth 34 songs in 90 minutes, but they played one of the quicker songs twice after fucking it up the first time, so it was really 35.

The Descendents came back on twice for encores which were of course planned, but nonetheless they gave good value for money. Unlike some watering holes I could mention.

As everyone spilled out into the street and headed for the tube, one drunken person yelled: “All?” to watch a good 50 or so other drunken people, including myself, responded: “No, All!”

That sums up what a great bloody time you have with the Descendents, but sadly it was the proud and all the all too few who got to see them on Sunday.