Tea and Blood: Rebellion 2024 Day 2
Day two began with a spot of afternoon tea. But that’s another story.
One Man Underground looks on Knucklehead Joel enjoys a spot of tea. ©dickslaughter
The Good Lady Punk Connoisseur was umming and ahhing about joining me in Blackpool. What swung it for her was TV Smith, performing The Adverts songbook. And so it was, after a few sandwiches with Carol Hodge and Knuckleheadz, we sauntered to the Opera House to find it full to bursting. Clearly, this was a major draw for the Rebellion audience. As Smith made his way on stage, he announced that this was his biggest solo show ever. Were it not for the capacity of the room, the audience demand would have made it even bigger. The clever thing about the set was that the songs, many of them regarded as punk classics today, others deep cuts for the most hardcore of Adverts fans, seemed to translate perfectly to acoustic guitar in ways that are unimaginable for other punk tracks.
TV Smith. ©dickslaughter
I had confused Police Bastard, Birmingham crust punk band, with Petrol Bastard, Leeds comedy techno punk duo. I was a little confused therefore, walking to Club Casbah, to see a six-piece band take to the stage. A bit of Googling later, and it all made sense – I’m an idiot. Still, I got to see a decent bit of riff-heavy, screamy good fun, climaxing with a track called ‘No Race Hate’. The omens were getting stronger.
Smoking Gives You Big Tits. © Theo Dimitrakos
Because I was watching Police Bastard, I missed out on Smoking Gives You Big Tits in the Arena. Luckily, my good friend and theremin virtuoso Hypnotique caught them, and had this to say:
I was drawn to Smoking Gives You Big Tits as a child of 1980s advertising. I do believe the hype. I was not left disappointed. The Salford four-piece describe themselves as comical post-punk riot grrrl. Imagine L7 doing songs about Toadfish from Neighbours with a kazoo solo and heavy bass. Frontwoman Helen Taylor wows with self-effacing anthems that dance a fandango between the mundane and the magical. A song about how bands are really t-shirt salesman (on point for a festival where T-shirts outnumbered record stalls). A meta song about how it's bloody annoying being a short person at a gig when a tall bloke stands in front of you, exactly what 5' 3'' me is down for. A rousing cheer with crowd-pleaser "My Favourite Facts About Maggie," most notably being that "she's fucking dead." This is Northern soul. Never forget, kids.
Smoking Gives You Big Tits are the tits. Just the right kind of northern swagger, social commentary and self-deprecating wit to make it big. And a far more entertaining pair of big tits than the Gallagher brothers.
I was curious to see how the Knuckleheadz experience would translate from the tiny, barely-even-a-stage of day zero to the cavernous Club Casbah. Surely it couldn’t live up to that first show? Within about 10 seconds, I realised this was a silly thing to think. By the end of the set, the band now complete with the once visa-less member back in the fold, vocalist Tom covered in blood, audience enraptured, ears ringing from some of the most intense, yet oddly wholesome, hardcore punk I heard all weekend, I was fully on board. Knuckleheadz are one of the most intriguing, exciting punk bands around, and I cannot wait to see them back in the UK. If for no other reason than to compare tattoos again with Tom. But as I said at the top, that’s a story for someone else to tell.
Knuckleheadz? Bleeding heads. ©dickslaughter
The March Violets were there at the start of the post-punk movement, and they’re still around today, blending the sound of New York no-wave with gothic rock. Songs old and new featured, including songs from new album ‘Crocodile Promises’. They were… fine. Absolutely fine. Look, I’ll be honest – I was still on a high from Knuckleheadz. Anything was going to feel underwhelming after that, so maybe I didn’t give them a fair shake. But I just couldn’t get excited by them. It’s probably my fault.
I first came across the legend of Johnny Moped through the documentary ‘Basically, Johnny Moped’, before seeing the man and the band perform at the same tribute to Jordan where I first caught The Pink Diamond Revue. But let’s be clear, while there are some old songs in the set, there was plenty of new material here too from this year’s album, ‘Quonk!’. Billy Childish once described the band as an essential blend of, “amateurism, mayhem and humour.” The amateurism and mayhem may have faded with time, but the humour remains, and what the audience got was some great rock and roll from a group and singer unwilling to rest on their laurels, or let the documentary, or even the myths, speak for them. Top stuff.
Animal of Anti Nowhere League. ©dickslaughter
My one trip to the Ballroom today was for Anti Nowhere League, intrigued by Animal’s storytelling of the previous day. Now, I hate to reveal how the sausage is made, but for all these write-ups, I’m basing them on notes I made during the performances. However, the longer the show went on, the bigger the pit became, until it was impossible to write a single legible word. As such, I’ll have to go on memory for this one, which was to say – any band that inspired an audience to such a frenzy, peaking with a performance of ‘So Fucking What’, that they forced reporters to stop reporting and just enjoy the show, is a band worth experiencing for yourself.
Toyah. © 1MU
Over in the Opera House, it was actor, new-wave act, Teletubby interpreter, ballroom dancer, and breakout star of lockdown, Toyah. Strutting on stage in full sequin splendour, she explained that her mother had danced on that very same stage in the 1940s, making this a very significant show for her. Though lacking the same level of what-the-fuckery of her Sunday Lunch videos with husband Robert Fripp, she still put on a terrific show, crooning and wedding-dancing her way through a mix of her own material with covers of Billy Idol, Martha and the Muffins, and what she described as the “origins of punk,” Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’. There are essays to be written about how accurate that statement is, and I shan’t be writing them.
Steve Ignorant and Carol Hodge performing the Crass songbook. ©dickslaughter
Finally, it was back to Club Casbah for the Steve Ignorant Band, performing the music of Crass from 1981-1984. One can debate whether this is the “real Crass”, or if that could only be found in a commune in Epping Forest. What I can say is that the songs have lost none of their power, 40 years on, and Ignorant is as powerful a vocal force as he was then. With Eve Libertine nowhere to be seen, co-vocal duties were handed to Carol Hodge. Though the complete opposite to the set she gave the previous day, she absolutely stole the show, with a vocal performance that more than matched Ignorant’s. I wasn’t sure about missing The Stranglers to catch this set, but I’m very glad I did.
I don’t know if “punk is dead,” but after 2 full days, I was getting dead on my feet. The weekend would require a change of pace. I didn’t quite realise what that would mean.
