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Review: 'REBELLION FESTIVAL 2016 (DAY FOUR)'
'Blackpool, Winter Gardens, 7th August 2016'   


-  Genre: 'Punk/New Wave'

Our Rating:
Day Four. Bands included in this review: Police Bastard, Resistance 77, 16 Guns, Healthy Junkies, Goldblade, Citizen Fish, Dirt Box Disco, Hagar The Womb, The Restarts, Atilla The Stockbroker, Slaughter & The Dogs, Sensa Yuma, Extreme Noise terror.

Yes we are still standing and strolling down the beach. As day 4 begins it feels like the first 3 days have flown by.

We start day 4 in the Tower Street arena for Police Bastard: a band we treated as background music the last time we saw them at Rebellion. This time we paid attention to their brand of angry as fuck issues-based hardcore punk which feature growled and semi growled vocals and a sneaking liking for Black Sabbath.

We stuck around in the Tower Street Arena for Resistance 77, the angry skinhead Oi! punk band who have loads of issues among which is the question of whether they are left-wing, right-wing or just working class. They play with the classic nationalist imagery a lot and the high spots were Chelsea Girl (no, definitely not the Nico) song and Long Time Dead as well as the punch your hands in the air anthems Always Be a Punk and Spirit Of St George's.

Then it was in to the Pavilion for 16 guns and a dose of old school, angry, issues-based punk that didn't sound as good as they did a couple of years ago, even if they did a cool cover of Johnnny B Goode.

We stuck around for Healthy Junkies for a set of glam-my Heartbreaker-esque female-fronted punk with Nina Courson working the place pretty well. Burning Bridges sounded great and This is Not A Suicide was a fine sounding song. Runaway Devil has some cool lyrics and Hypocrite (I Hate You) seemed to go down pretty well too.

Then it was back to the Tower Street Arena to catch the end of Goldblade. As normal we seem to catch the last song I Believe in the Power Of Rock & Roll and as usual it sounded great and John Robb got loads of people to testify. One year we'll catch a full set by them.

Then it's time for Citizen Fish's Dick Lucas' third and final band of the weekend, this time they are an anarcho-vegan-Ska punk band who opened their set by singing happy Birthday to the bands merch woman!! They certainly brought a party atmosphere to things even if the songs had serious lyrics. High spots include Better and a great version of Meltdown.

We stayed put for Dirt Box Disco who were easily the most camp band of the weekend, playing camp as you like cartoon punk while encouraging as much crowd surfing as possible. The highlights included Vermin and Jukebox and the ribbing between the singer and Spunk Volcano on guitar. That and bringing out a mini Spunk Volcano for a couple of songs that I think included the set closing my Life Is Shit which of course everyone sang along too.

Then after a toasted cheese sarnie break it was time for Hagar the Womb in the Arena for some great day-glo cartoon anarcho punk. Yes Perfect Life sounded, well, perfect and just the right amount of banter between this band and the fun they are having trying to get drunk while performing is worth seeing. They bounced all over the place to Hated By The Daily Mail and went full on radio rental during Life Of Lies.

It's A War shouldn't be as much fun as this was but it was and the band never stopped ripping the piss out of each other as they sang Song Of Hate. It felt like there was nothing but love in the room. I think they closed with dressed to Kill and they had indeed killed it- a great fun set.

We hung around for The Restarts who played angry hardcore punk that really didn't connect with us at all. We lasted about 4 songs before deciding we could find something better to see and left to find that the Arena was full to capacity with a line of people waiting to get in. I was happy to make space for them.

We headed over to the opera House to catch some of Attila The Stockbroker's set that was as you'd expect it to be. Basically good angry left-wing poetry about the state of the world. He was also reading sections of his autobiography and it sounded like it would be worth a read. He threw in a couple of songs but we had to leave before he finished as we wanted to catch all of Slaughter and The Dogs' set.

Yes we got into the Empress Ballroom with just enough time to get another cider before the original line up of Slaughter and The Dogs came on and opened with Twist and Turn and were welcomed like the returning heroes they are. Who Are The Mystery Girls was next and sounded great. Slaughter's blue hair was something too as he worked a microphone that had a union jack attached to it to add a little drama. Boston Babies sounded as raucous as ever. We Don't Care sounded like the opposite as they obviously care about being one tight and really cool punk band.

I'm Waiting For the Man sounded damn cool and really got the place going. They did a great tribute to David Bowie on Diamond Dogs. Where Have all The Bootboys Gone sounded as great as ever. Situations sounded like a stone cold classic punk thrill ride. They deserved the encore they got that saw Slaughter (or should that be Wayne Barrett?) coming back on in a cloak covered in talc for Cranked Up Really High. It was a great end to a very cool set.

We then went to the Arena for the end of Sensa Yuma: a band who broke one of the cardinal rules of a festival like this as they not only ran over but tried to play an extra song by telling the stage manager they'd already announced it. So you're out of time, so sod off and let the real legends that follow you onto the stage. For that crime alone I will not say what I thought of the rest of what we heard of Sensa Yuma other than to say they by-passed my sense of humour totally.

But we were in the arena to see Extreme Noise Terror to see if they are still the only grindcore band I need to see or not. Well yes of course they are a magnificent noise from start to finish and most of the audience were smiling at the sheer wall of distortion and the incongruity of how the band now look as it's obvious they live very different lifestyles to each other.

From the start they were a blistering, full-on tag team of screamed vocals wailing distorted to hell and back alongside guitar and bass and thumping drums. An early highlight was a rampage through Work For Never and the dissonance between the state of the two vocalists was stark but didn't matter as they rampaged through Religion Is Fear until it was battered into our brains.

They pummelled the fuck out of No One Is Innocent and melted our brains with Human Error. Dogma Intelligence Control was spat at us in a rabid style as the guitar and drums raged full on. Murder was as nasty as they could get it to be which is of course damn nasty and yet everyone around me was smiling as if this was happy-clappy music. They finished by demolishing Sham 69's Borstal Breakout and it was a magnificent mess. They were a really great band to finish the festival with. If my ears weren't ringing before Extreme Noise Terror they certainly were afterwards.
  author: simonovitch

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