Rebellion 2013 -day 2
As i said yesterday theres 8 venues in the one building here at rebellion. one of the venues is used as a literary / poet forum. the literary events are always fascinating. John robb documents our movement by asking people who were involved some searching questions. We the hear first hand events of life at the start of punk rock. today steve ignorant spoke of the Crass days, peter jones spoke of paranoid visions and the dublin scene and hazel o connor spoke of the movie breaking glass and her subsequent work. We also had Greg Cowan from the outcasts letting us know about belfast. Belfast is getting a resurgence if interest thankfully, due mainly to good vibrations the movie. Petesy burns was there to say it didn’t start and end with good vibes in belfast though. Many other good people were fling the punk flag in the north while all other flags were being burned.
This is an area where DIY is still blooming. A huge number of people are bringing out their own books and if I wasn’t subject to weight restrictions on baggage coming home I’d be laden down with titles, that and the fact you’d have to pay for them!!
I stayed at this venue for longer than expected as it was compelling listening to people’s stories. I ventured downstairs for a little while to see Splodgenesabounds. Splodge are a bit of a parody, still going strong though.
I also caught a bit of the bizarrely named Smokey bastard. They had a pogues twinge but rocked the pavilion and they were an introduction to me, a good one.
The skints added to the diversity of playing by being on stage with their reggae beat. Maybe it’s the punk in me but when a singer tells me to make some noise my reaction is to close my mouth. Skint wanted us to make noise and keep moving.
I moved out to listen to the poets.
Joolz Denby gripped us with some stories and Steve Potinger was the discovery of the day. Some great hard hitting poetry from the angry poet. Spot on sentiments and clever structures. “It’s what u do with your time here that matters”. Exactly Steve.
I have been looking forward to the flatliners. Seeing them on the bill was one if the highlights in my pre planning for the festival. After technical difficulties they got going with their acoustic set and then the smoke started. We were shouting in the crowd and pointing to the speaker on the vocal pa. band and sound engineer were oblivious to the smoke emanating. Eventually it was unplugged and this gave true meaning to unplugged. Unfortunately the room was too big and we couldn’t hear them
Steve ignorant and paranoid visions it was to be so. If new model army were a soundtrack to a few months of my teenage years, crass were the foundation. Don’t get me wrong i love the clash but the world of music for a young Dublin boy like me was completely opened up and blown apart by crass and subsequently flux of pink Indians. They were the starting point. So to see Steve on stage is a pretty big thing. To see him not doing those crass songs is even better as they were of their time. This time round he is doing paranoid visions songs, written by the visions for the purpose of this project. The Olympia venue is a huge warehouse, very hard to get a good sound in it. The chaotic noise of paranoid visions was a bit lost in it as it seemed at times the 9 of them were each battling to be heard. Looking forward to the new album coming out in November.
Also with 9 members on stage were the beatlessoms. A wider selxtion of instruments than the visions. These Germans ( mainly) were playing ukulele, banjo, accordion as well as the more conventional guitar bass drums. I walked in with the most bizarre version of motorheads ace of spades since that samba band who covered cass songs (what were they called again?, oh yeah, Bloco Vomit) Fun for sure. Another example of the diversity Of this magic festival
Subhumans played in the youth expression centre in Dublin in 1984. It was 4 nights spread over 2 weeks if memory serves me right. Other bands over the fortnight included shrapnel , from Wales, the Golden Horde and paranoid visions were also there and vicarious living (my band at the time) also played 1 night at least. I have a memory of cactus world news being on the bill but many have contradicted me. I do remember the feeling of excitement at those gigs. The venue was upstairs in a run down building in temple bar and it seemed like the stairs weren’t going to last the gig. The energy on stage from subhumans and all the bands (maybe not including vicarious living) was powerful. If only you could bottle that energy up, it would have fuelled many protests over the years. Well the subhumans still have that energy and could well be playing be same set. Brilliant
The flatliners have got a fair bit of airing on my radio show. And for good reason. Whenever I listen to them I wanna scream loud, top of my voice. But in celebration. Thankfully this set wasnt dogged with technical difficulties and burning speakers. Last time I saw a band this good in this room was 7 seconds, flatliners topped it tonight. Fantastic.
One of the problems of the festival is the cross billing. Inevitably with 8 stages there will be conflicts if interest. This was the case tonight on more than one occasion but noticeably for me when the flatliners were due on at the same time as Justin Sullivan. Thankfully the acoustic stage was running late as the new model army front man celebrated punk as an attitude and enthralled the 300 people hanging on his every word.
I don’t have the stamina of the punks and decided as we’re only half way through I would retire for the night. Because of that I missed out on the damned, buzzcocks, vibrators, defects, neck, the exploited and the addicts. Impressive list to know are playing as you sleep dreaming of punk rock!!!
