Our day began early as we wanted to see Viki Vortex & The Cumshots again and they were on first in the Club Casbah at 12.40pm and they were well worth the effort to get in early to see them play a hangover busting set of dayglow punk with a good mix of angry and dirty songs all sung with a good cheeky grin by Viki the highlights were a great spunky version of Plastic Fantastic and the good down and dirty grind that was Fluffer. A great start to the day and yes we did have our first pint of Strongbow while watching them.
Then it was over to the Arena to see another festival regular and super hard working band The Healthy Junkies play a slightly sleazier but still pretty glammy grunge punk set. As usual Nina Courson bounced all over the place and got angry and contorted on This Is Not A Suicide and Phil HoneyJones guitar was good and frantic on Runaway like they were scarpering from something horrible. They also made us all smile on These Boots Are made For Walking and as usual finished with a spiky and episodic version of The Wipers classic D7. Great lunch time interlude set.
We then made our first visit to the Empress Ballroom of the festival for Spunk Volcano & The Eruptions annual ram raid of a set. Yes Spunk's balaclava looks like it's held together with Sellotape and they've been Hanging Round The Shops too long planning that Ram Raid in there XR3's but really they are just the best fun Seaside Cartoon Punks around even if they behave like Knob heads they packed the Ballroom and went down a storm as normal.
We then popped over to the Arena to catch some extremely angry Spanish Hardcore from Grippers whose frontwoman Mery was totally confrontational like she has been through some real heavy stuff while the Bass player who looked like she'd stepped out the Addicted To Love video was totally propulsive but they were really too angry for us so we only stayed for 4 songs.
So we went to the Pavilion to check out The Astronauts who had been replaced by Cheap Thrills who were No Thrills only camper, yes they played lots of the songs we'd heard on Thursday in a super speedy 90's skate punk style while chanting Go Zippy Go Jimmy they were great fun and My Life My Way once again sort of stole the show.
We then went back to the Empress Ballroom to catch most of Newtown Neurotics set of extremely right on and righteous new wave with the odd Cod reggae diversion they did a good version of When The Oil Runs Out and manged to bring out the bloke from Dodgy as spezzy guest before they finished with a rather long and drawn out Living With Unemployment that JC Carroll did far better on the Almost Acoustic stage on Thursday night.
We stayed in the Ballroom for Subhumans who normally play on whatever outdoor stage they have but everything's indoors this year. It didn't matter as Dick Lucas and the boys were in great form from the moment they started haranguing us on Labels a huge pit opened up and they never stopped ranting and raving to us about dodgy Businessmen and what they get up to in this strange land of ours over crushingly heavy and quick hardcore. Dick's speech before they did Big Brother was spot on about how things have turned out worse than predicted. They closed with a raging version of Apathy which is one thing they will never be accused of great as ever.
After a short break for some food and to catch our breaths we went and took a seat in The Opera House for 80's Dayglo anarcho punk legends Hagar The Womb who as ever were the most fun you can have with your clothes on and barring the odd wardrobe malfunction they kept there's on while bouncing their way through Invisible Women which is something Ruth and Karen could never be. They were well up for it and bouncing all over the place chasing Mitch around so much he broke his guitar strap. Why did I think they sang Life of Pies and not Lies still Proof that after all these years they are still Dressed To Kill and immense fun with it.
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We then went back into the Empress Ballroom for Tonbridge Wells Finest The Anti-Nowhere League who were wonderfully sardonic tongue in cheek Hardcore slightly glam punk yes Animal Can't Stand Rock & Roll and he took a knee to introduce most of the songs while looking and sounding like Punks very own Tom Jones if Tom sang things like I Fucking Hate People and claiming to be The Last Cowboy. They had the entire room singing and punching the air for I Wanna Be Like Charlie Harper. Of course they rampaged through the Streets Of London and went full on Terrace chant for We Are the League before they closed with what could be Rebellions own anthem yep God Bless Alcohol and god bless Animal and the rest of The Anti-Nowhere League for making us all smile so much.
GBH had the unenviable task of following that and as much as Colin and the boys tried while playing a greatest hits set they were a comedown after the Anti-Nowhere League, still for me the highlights was a super taught Necrophilia with Colin throwing all his signature poses with the microphone stand and still in his black Leather jacket. Dead On Arrival was as powerful as ever and the pit really got going for This Means War. A good set just overshadowed by The League.
We slipped over to the Club Casbah for Neville Staple to see him steal the show with a great set that had the whole Casbah singing and dancing from the moment they opened with Gangsters and followed it with the Carnival classic Johnny Too Bad by the late lamented Slickers Neville played it just right nice with some good demonstrations of where he kept his Ratchet. Pressure Drop was monumentally great as was Monkey Man and of course they did Message To You Rudy I don't think there was anyone not dancing or singing by this point his band were all having a ball and he was swapping vocals with his wife. Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum seem more true today than it originally did.
I loved how he followed Simmer Down with Too Hot and the groove they had going on Concrete Jungle before they did a long version of Ghost Town that broke down into Get Up Stand Up and some band intro's or was that in Nothing Ever Changes? Either way they closed with Guns Of Navarone and for me it was the best set of the day.
The Angelic Upstarts had the impossible task of following that and as good as they were it was a real come down as Mensi tried to get us all revved up on I'm An Upstart it then took till Tories Tories Tories Out Out Out for things to get going a bit. You're Nicked went down well and Last Night Another Soldier is as poignant as it gets. Mensi rammed home his hatred of where we are now before and during Safe Haven and a bile filled take on Anti-Nazi before they closed with Police Oppression that had a good sing along to it as they ran out of time. A good set but still a downer after Neville Staple.
As we'd now been seeing bands for 12 hours we decided we needed greasy food and a walk down the prom to the B & B rather than stay for another band especially as we still had 2 more days to go.
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