Review:
'Rebellion Festival 2024 Day One'
'At The Winter Gardens Blackpool'
- Album: 'Sham 69, Lydia Lunch, UK Subs, Subhumans,'
- Label: 'Handsome Dick Manitoba, Splodgenessabounds,'
- Genre: 'Punk/New Wave'
- Release Date: '1.8.24.???Cyanide Pills'- Catalogue No: 'Menace, Heavy Metal Kids, Pete Bentham & DLs'
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Our Rating:
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Rebellion Festival is my favourite weekend of the year every year we go, this year was no exception, with massive thanks due to Darren and Jennie Russell Smith and the team that put on the festival, all the staff at the Winter Gardens and security team who help make sure this event runs almost like clockwork and trouble free. This year special mention goes to anyone involved in making sure the idiots of the EDL, who protested in Blackpool and started a mini riot, had it made crystal clear to them how unwelcome they were. I also thank all the bands that played the festival, I apologise I only got to see 46 bands over the four days.
Thankfully this year's journey up from London was stress free, as was getting into the Winter Gardens, by the time we arrived we had already missed three bands I wanted to see, but got into The Casbah stage just after Cyanide Pills had come on in the newly painted white cavernous room, Thankfully once we got close enough Cyanide Pills sounded good, Formica was as spiky as ever, They asked Do You Wanna Go Out Tonight, well if the guitars fry like that absolutely. Day After Day we'd all waited for Rebellion it was time to make the most of it. Johnny Thunders Lived In Leeds was a high spot. They made sure we all knew what they felt about The Government robbing us all blind before they fell in love with a Suicide Bomber it was a great start to the weekend for us.
Next was our first visit to the Empress Ballroom for Pete Bentham & The Dinner Ladies whose 6 piece line-up included a couple of Glamourous dancers equipped with short skirts and Rubber Gloves along with the Sax player, they were very entertaining, Pete pointed out that Dead's Not Punk while being glad he got outta Rhyl, The high spot was the song for the Olympics A Bas Le Caviar, Vive Le Kebab along with the glorious Goth Postman and the sing along fun of Hip Potater, as ever Pete is the Boy With Magazines and bags of cheeky fun.
It was time for our first 70's band of the weekend as The Heavy Metal Kids were in the Opera House, the current line-up sounded almost as crunchy as they did at The Underworld earlier this year. Jimmy Brown has enough double meaning and grit to work, Simon Gordon did his best to make sure we knew just what Squalliday Inn was all about. Andy Fullers keyboards drove She's No Angel on even if it wasn't a patch on hearing Michael Monroe sing it in the Opera house few years ago, the same also being true for Delirious while Keith Boyce really drove them home on Rock & Roll Man that was dedicated to the memory of Gary Holton.
We stayed seated in the Opera House until Menace came on and we had to get down the front for Noel and the boys to tell us The Truth about just how Screwed Up this classic 77 band still are, while letting us know who needs the services of The Electrocutioner. Noel gave a good look round the Opera house to find the Party Animals, especially anyone whose life was changed by 1976 What Did You Say long before we became an Insane Society. The biggest singalong was for GLC, they got a bit nostalgic for Last Years Youth the classic way they say goodbye, another great fun set from Menace.
It was time for our first visit to the Arena to discover they had moved the stage this year so that it no longer faced the stairs, that did all sorts of odd things to the sound, but with the stage facing the bar that gave room for more people and almost the best sounding room now, a total triumph and thanks to whoever's idea it was.
We got in just as Splodgenessabounds were making a Bloody Disgrace of the place with Keith Boyce on drums being the first person we saw twice this year, Max looked like he'd just stepped out of the Scrapyard, Max claimed his day was fucked coz his Socks Gone Down His Shoe again, it was so bad he had to sit down, before he was overcome and Fell In Love With A Female Plumber From Harlesden NW10 that we'd passed by on our way to Rebellion earlier. If you thought they would be tight and polite well it would be Tough Shit Wilson all they could hear was a Funny Noise coming out of one of the distorting guitars it seemed we had all been totally Splodged and were in need of Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps Please that sounds as good as it did when I bought the 7" single back in the day. I think everyone in the arena were grinning throughout in typical Splodge style.
One of the acts that first made me come to Rebellion Handsome Dick Manitoba of The Dictators was next in the ballroom with his current 5 piece classic Balls to the walls New York New York rockers, ready to blast the ballroom to pieces, Handsome Dick was in his wrestling robes ready to make sure the Party Start's Now! and how it started, he was ribbing the band, the audience giving us Haircut And Attitude guitars exploding, wall of pain drums from Down On Avenue A, while Dick told us about his ole Neighbourhoods gentrification. We got the classic Baby Lets Twist and the Savage Beat that let us know how happy he was to be here with us all, no matter how grumpy he may have behaved, he was still the Next Big Thing the one and only Dictator always Faster & Louder the greatest Two Tub Man of all time, who loved being back in England we always Stay With Me, this smash and grab raid came to a rambunctious conclusion with some praise for Scott Kempner the man Who Will Save Rock & Roll this set may well have done it all by itself.
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Who could follow Handsome Dick well it had to be Scrawny Dick Lucas who may be a bantamweight but he and The Subhumans packed a weighty punch like always from the moment Trotsky kicked them into gear, Dick was running all over the stage belting out all the hits at the start of this New Age of post tory world, that as Dick pointed out is still messed up enough to be fighting This Years War, still hoping for Evolution. With thoughts on impending riots Dick made clear Everyone's A Terrorist and we are still the 99% fighting the evil 1%, time to stand up for the Minority because Mickey Mouse Is Dead as this 100mph express was headed straight to Subvert City in time for us all to scream No at the very thought of more Religious Wars as ever Subhumans smashed it.
Next it was time for the legendary king of the punks himself Charlie Harper and UK Subs to blast through yet another post-retirement set of classics from CIA and I Live In A Car the packed ballroom knew it was classics all the way with Stefan Haublein in the driving seat for the Coup D'etat of living in a Police State before Charlie sang Emotional Blackmail for the first times this weekend, Steve Straughan's guitar runs sounding like he knew all the right Telephone Numbers, just like Alvin Gibbs is always happiest Down On The Farm. The whole place sang along to almost everything, Limo Life and Barbies Dead were both pretty raucous, Party In Paris was as much fun as ever. Warhead seemed to start off a bit quieter than usual before the mass singalong it always is, the Riot Squad were warming up for Saturday ready to get a Stranglehold on any dumb fascists in time to close with Disease, obviously they got an encore and blasted through Teenage as if they were still under 30.
We then popped over to the Opera House for the act on this year's bill that I've seen most live, Lydia Lunch who I have seen regularly since 1986 with among other bands Sonic Youth, Big Sexy Noise, Shotgun Wedding, Harry Crews and Retro Virus but in all those years I've never seen Lydia at a festival. For this performance she performed her current spoken word material with ambient noise backing in a typically uncompromising fashion, she made clear that Freedom Is An Hallucination, that the fight never ends this condition of being will never be easy, the world is diseased and the apocalypse is just around the corner. That she avoided any of her classic material meant that some of the people who had never seen her before found her set hard to take, in typical Lydia style she told off anyone trying to clap between rants, she doesn't need our affirmation, remember you could be next.
What was actually next, was Sham 69 back in the ballroom for a greatest hits ram raid of a set, from the moment Jimmy asked What Have We Got? The answer should have been the ballroom eating out of your hands and not Tear Gas Eyes, I Don't Wanna was driven by Dave Tregunna's bassline deep into our brains. Refugee is far too pertinent still. If only the message of Ulster had actually got through to more than just the Irish. As Jimmy stalked the stage for Rip Off the mosh pit started to get going properly. Apparently George Davis Is Still Innocent ok. Borstal Breakout was a mass singalong, with Dave Parsons super spiky guitar cruising through That's Life. Angels With Dirty Faces was glorious as Jimmy told someone to get rid of the flag they were waving as Sham 69 are a no flags band, no matter how much money you paid to see them. He emphasized the point on OMG (NO Flag) before taking us back to the bad old days when they needed help fighting off the wrong kind of Skinhead and they did a brutal version of White Riot before delivering the still crucial message of If the Kids Are United to close things. They came back for an encore of Hersham Boys ripping through the place, before closing day one for us with Hurry Up Harry that had the whole ballroom screaming the chorus at them, a brilliant end to a brilliant first day. All that was left was a walk along the front and time for some donuts.
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author: simonovitch
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