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The Rebellion punk weekender has now been at Blackpool’s Winter Gardens for several years. Last time this hack attended it was Morecambe ’05 in its former guise of the Wasted Festival – a meagre gathering of ’77 era punk bands feebly flying the ‘Punk’s Not Dead‘ banner.
In five years, the festival has come on in leaps and bounds. This year’s line-up features younger acts such as Fucked Up, Gallows and The King Blues, a plethora of ska bands (presumably to keep everyone off their arses and dancing past Saturday night) and a hotly-anticipated festival-closing set from Bad Religion who are celebrating their 30th anniversary.
Pete Bentham and the Dinnerladies kicked things off in the enormous Empress Ballroom, their opening slot more coveted than one might imagine, as it’s superbly attended. Despite the guitars being a tad low, Pete, Marie Goldie and Gabrielle Fray Bentos get things off to a flyer with their Half Man, Half Biscuit styled jangly pub rock. There’s a neat surprise as the ‘ladies don baboon and wolf masks for ‘Nature‘ while three backing singers, The Dinnerettes, accompany the band for the last tune.
These luscious lasses turn out to be Barbieshop and don’t even have time for a change of frock before racing over to the Bizarre Bazaar for their own set.
Their well-honed routine is to sing a cappella versions of classic pop songs. Queen’s ‘This Thing Called Love‘ and The Undertones‘ ‘Teenage Kicks‘ are both in there and ‘Creep‘ by Radiohead take on an even more sinister element in their reworking than in the original.
The graceful pitter-patter of The Trashmen’s ‘Bird is the Word‘ has the punters spellbound as the trio effortlessly juggle vocal parts between them and even the drunken hecklers at the back have to raise a can of warm lager in appreciation.
Our dismay that much lauded The Aggrolites lack a bit of energy tonight and fail to jump-start the bespiked lot down the front of the Empress is readily quashed by the high tempo ska-punk of Streetlight Manifesto. An accomplished brass section sticks out head and shoulders above the guitars and Rebellion 2010 finally skanks itself into life.
It proves too tough an act for headliners The King Blues to follow, particularly as frontman Itch doesn’t exactly ingratiate himself with the crowd by spitting a volley of pointless, garbled anarcho-poetry before their set.
His embarrassing preaching gives his band a mountain to climb, especially as their newer material doesn’t quite stand up to that of their hugely acclaimed debut album ‘Under The Fog’. Only recent single ‘Headbutt‘ really sticks out as a bonafide pop classic, but only ‘cos it sounds like a Jamie T song.
By Friday morning, the streets of Blackpool are awash with punks and there are even reports that the smell of hair lacquer and stale beer can be detected in Lytham St. Anne’s.
Neon mohawks are everywhere you look: pubs, hotel foyers, tea shops, even Debenhams for chrissakes. We’re growing more suspicious that a good number of these ‘rebels’ secretly own a Ben Sherman shirt and listen to Fallout Boy on the sly.
After an artery-punishing breakfast it’s off to the smaller Arena stage for Baby Boom, which is the brilliantly named side project of festival favourites Sonic Boom Six.
This band exists for no other reason than to air some guilty pleasures, namely, cover versions of hits from the 80s. There’s no irony involved, and although Mike Oldfield’s ‘Moonlight Shadow’, replete with gorgeous guitar solos, is well-received, it seems rather pointless at a punk festival. Luckily, their other band rocks like hellfire.
We head over to the basement venue Olympia for an ear-shattering deluge of noise from Derby-based Poundaflesh. Their brand of macho hardcore does little for the hangover so it’s off to the opposite extreme of the acoustic stage in the Winter Gardens main bar to watch folk act Jimmy Sorrow die painfully on his arse. Inter-song banter is met with stony-faced silence and the very fact that he’s playing on banjo a bunch of rock songs that have no right to be played on banjo makes his act about as flimsy as a crepe paper condom.
Back in the Olympia a man dressed in a leather kilt is marching through the crowd playing the theme from Star Wars. This is not an imaginative anti-drugs campaign, but an integral part of fun-time punk band Monkish’s set. Their shouty punk bursts of energy are warmly appreciated, not least because the band have an obvious penchant for fancy dress. There’s a wrestler, a jogger in fishnets and a man of indeterminate usefulness dressed in a cow outfit. As farcical as they look, the music is as amusing as their costumes. Songs about watching “unwankable†porn movies (‘Essex Pub Orgy‘) and your mate getting drunk and relieving himself in a kitchen appliance (‘Microwave’) have even the typically poker-faced stage security team in stitches.
Attila the Stockbroker brings proceedings to a close on the acoustic stage with some politically-inspired folk rock, including the “first ever thrash metal song played on the mandola†‘Libyan Students From Hell’. The biggest applause, however, is reserved for some extremely personal poetry about his late mother and step-father, the latter of whom he was finally able to open up to after so many years.
No time to get weepy though. It’s back to the main stages where the abundance of immaculately-groomed quiffs suggest it’s time for legends of psychobilly King Kurt to bring some style to the proceedings. The hypnotic floor tom roll of ‘Zulu Beat‘ reverberates around the Arena as the wreckin‘ starts. Billed as arguably the most successful psychobilly band of all time, they don’t disappoint and it’s good to see that 50s rock and roll is so respected at a punk rock festival.