This was the official launch show for Brand New Brand: the Anglo-Swedish punk supergroup's excellent second album available now from The Crunch online.
We arrived just as the first band, The Scraps, were coming on. They are a young, 3-piece multi-national punk band with at least one Swedish member, though I'm not sure where the other two are from. They opened with a great rumbling instrumental followed by a rather speedy song with lots of "Hey hey hey's" in it that marked them out as being somewhere in the same territory as The Parkinsons crossed with KSMB and a bit of The Ramones.
The rest of the set was kept at a reasonably frenetic pace and a song that told us "Our time Had Come" was among the highlights. Turn It Up may also have sounded like Shut Up: it was angry and had some really spiky guitar playing. The one they introduced they told us is untitled so we call it Bollocks!!
They played a cover of a Swedish Punk song. I tried to ask what it was afterwards but I asked the drummer whose English wasn't brilliant but I'm guessing it might have been Allt O.K. by PF Commando. I'm not sure it, but certainly had a similar vibe to it. Sorry, my Swedish ain't all that either.
It was followed by I Wanna: speedy and good fun, as was the closing song You Drive Me Wild. This was a cool opening set and I'm sure if they play regularly enough they'll soon build a decent following.
Next on and with a big following already are The Pukes who are a huge (I think) 14 piece Punk Ukelele orchestra. If that isn't too odd a description of the massed ranks of mainly female uke players (at least one of whom had a flying V uke) they also almost all singalong songs. They opened with Fight Song which, with the massed singing and Uke playing, made most of the crowd smile.
White Riot was dedicated to Terry Chimes and worked well as everyone joined in. The 453 was next and was ok but didn't stand out.
I loved hearing the massed ukes on 12XU. It somehow worked brilliantly re-inventing the Wire classic and the energy from the stage was quite infectious. It was quickly followed by a song about being Teenage once more: a time I think has long since passed for most of The Pukes. Turn It Up was next and with all the scream-y vocals I have to say I could have turned it down a bit as by this point as all the songs were starting to sound a little bit too similar.
Next up was Will I Learn; another song from the band's Too Drunk To Pluck album and well...it sounded like everything else as did I Ain't Your Bitch and whatever the next song was. I spent most of Jet Boy, Jet Girl trying to work out what it was before going slack-jawed when I realized what they were singing.
I was ready for the set to end at this point but we still had another 4 songs to go and the only one that stood out was the closer Baby Baby because they dragged Knox from The Vibrators up to sing it and he sounded great on his old classic.
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Then finally it was time for The Crunch who are back up to full strength as a 5-piece as Idde Schultz had returned for Stockholm. She'd missed The Crunch's last London show at Koko earlier in the year at the launch of the film "I Need a Dodge! Joe Strummer On The Run!" in the interim.
They opened with the opening track on Brand New Brand, Lonely Beat Of The Heart and it sounded great. Street Flavour was next and had the first really cool solo from Mick Geggus. Right About Now! was good and well crunchy with some nice bass fills from Dave Tregunna underpinning it.
Then it was time for the first single from Brand New Brand. Neon Madonna sounds fuller live than it does on the album and still about as catchy as a pop song can get. I'm still stuck with it in my head. Sulo then stood aside so that Dave Tregunna could sing Russian Roulette; the old Lords Of The New Church classic.
Then Idde stepped upfront for Little Bit Of Grace which is about as soft and soppy as this lot will ever get before they brought out the skank for Solid Rock Steady with some massive drumming from Terry Chimes and a bit of a party flavour to it.
They got a bit rueful on Yesterday's Boys and Girls as if this lot could ever be past it, but if they were would that be a Matter Of Fate. I guess it would in which case this set list was very carefully put together indeed.
They then dipped into Mick Geggus' history for a great version of The Cockney Rejects' Bad Man that was good and angry before the power pop skank of Gangster Radio: the song that launched this band onto the world a while ago and it sounded great tonight.
Then it was time to pretend we were all teenagers again for a brilliant version of Sham 69's Borstal Breakout before they closed the set with "Down By The Borderline" as it was introduced but of course it's really just the Border.
Soon enough they were back for a well-earned encore that opened with Terry Chimes playing a drum solo before the rest of the band strolled back on and broke into a nice dubby version of a Matter Of Time; followed by a great version of The Clash's Garageland that they normally encore with before they closed with a different encore, Runaway Son.
This was another great set by a band that really do need to be seen live for you to enjoy them at full force.
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