This is the first time I've been to The Rebellion Punk Festival in Blackpool and I have to say it is about the best run festival I have ever attended. It is, admittedly, helped by being in a great Victorian entertainment complex that has room inside for 8 stages all of which are no more than about 5 minutes apart unlike some festivals where it can take an half hour or more to get from one place to another. This means you can see a lot more of the bands and Rebellion has more bands than anyone needs to see in a weekend. Its other main advantage is that it's indoors and the fact that we didn't have to camp as Blackpool has hundreds of cheap B & B's to stay in.
After taking the train up from London and checking in, we arrived at The Winter Gardens at about 2.30: a couple of hours after things had started. It took seconds to exchange our tickets for wrist bands and to be given free programmes and band menu with all the stage times on for the weekend. Yes the big full colour programme was free no being charged a fiver for a running order like at some other festivals.
We took a walk round to find the stages and ended up going into the Pavilion to kick things off by seeing most of ANGRY ITCH who (not surprisingly) play quite angry punk in a really nice room that holds I guess about 800 when packed.
Next up was our first trip to The Arena stage in a big high- ceilinged room that is normally a bar area when the Ballroom is being used as a ballroom. It had room for about 1000 people and we saw INDECENT ASSAULT play some angry dog-on-a-rope style anarcho punk. Not bad at all.
It was about time for some culture so we went upstairs into the Spanish Room; a large room that (if cleared of the tables) would hold about 1200. We were here to hear JONA LEWIE being interviewed by Richie Rocker. It was cool to hear Jona talking about his musical roots and influences: everyone from Mugsy Spanier to Little Richard. This turned out to be our only visit to the Spanish Room, however.
Then we decided that we had to see SPUNK VOLCANO & THE ERUPTIONS on the Casbah Stage for the band's name alone. The Casbah stage was actually in the Car park and had room for about 1500. It also had pigeon nets up as it is normally inhabited by Blackpool's own gang of Sparrow on a string Pigeons of the worst sort, several of whom could be seen flying around in circles much like the pits some punks were dancing in. Spunk himself was wearing a face mask for a set of very funny street gang punk that was full of sexual mishaps and they were well worth seeing.
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Then it was back to The Pavilion for CRETIN 77 who played a set of angry anti-war street punk with blistering guitars. They finished with a great version of Joy Division's Transmission that got everyone joining in.
Up next on the Casbah stage was ARMY OF SKANKS who provided us with a good set of shouty slut punk in the style of The Runaways meets L7, but they were cool and fun to watch.
We then took our first trip into the Empress Ballroom, the legendary room that The Rolling Stones are still banned from playing in after the riot they caused in the 60's and where George Formby still holds the record for most sold out shows. It's a huge room that I'd guess holds about 8000 plus and we got In for most of GOLDBLADE'S set. For John Robb, the band's legendary singer it is of course a hometown gig, they of course play super high octane almost glam punk and had the room going while John stalked that stage like he owned it.
We then went back to the Casbah for what was left of BILLYCLUB'S set of fast and furious street punk. It was full of anger and bile. We stuck around taking a seat at the back and then saw POTENTIAL VICTIMS play a set of angry social issues-based street punk attacking all those idiots who need attacking.
Back into The Arena in time for most of BRASSICKS set of female-fronted poor disenfranchised punk. They were very cool and worth seeing. They were followed by CYANIDE PILLS who have been building a reputation for incendiary shows and this was no exception as they blasted through a high octane set of garage punk with a speedy pop rock edge to it. For us this was a good band to end day one with.
Yes we wimped out and didn't stay around for the other 3 hours of music still left of Day 1 but we wanted to reserve some of our strength for the rest of this four day marathon.
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