Live Review: Rebellion Festival 2024 – Saturday
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Dod Morrison
Day four of Rebellion 2024 begins under grey skies, but there’s nothing remotely dull about Australians Convict Clash who genuinely do have a tune in their repertoire called Wank Sock. Sounding like those legacy bands of the Seventies and Eighties, with a little extra added for good luck, the antipodeans make Sunday start with a bang. One of my newly discovered bands of 2023 were On the Huh, whose album of that year almost made it onto my Best of… list in December. Big brash Oi! built on driving rhythms is just what the doctor ordered and their show all but picks up where 2023’s left off.
The Pavilion stage has been rebranded Loud Women in the Pavilion for the day and the first band I check out are Mancunians The Empty Page who play a sort of Indie Punk with the merest hint of post-punk. It’s a more sedate start to the day, when compared to the two bands I’d seen to this point. Down in the Arena is father and son duo FMA + 12 Gauge from just down the road in Preston. They are probably Rebellion’s squarest peg as theirs is a sound of harsh electronics and industrial vibes, though not being strictly punk at a punk festival is probably the most punk thing you can do.
Turbo A.C.s are another band with almost three decades of function under their belts and, having rubbed shoulders with the likes of Agnostic Front and The Dwarves over the years. With a sound reminiscent of Teenage Bottlerocket or Rancid, this New York collective is a heads-down and blast experience, that continues to shake off the Sunday cobwebs. Over in the Casbah is Faintest Idea, a septet featuring so many horns that the band’s budget must get swallowed up buying Brasso. Rebellion is still sweet on The Rumkicks and the South Korean gals look like their having the times of their lives. Again. They’re always a pleasure to watch so long may that continue.
Dirt Box Disco are another band who know their way around a Rebellion stage better than most and, no matter where they appear on the billing will always attract a big and boisterous crowd. They’re headlining the Boulevard’s Christmas Bash in Wigan, which is just going to be the best kind of carnage. Can’t wait for that one! The alternative punk stylings of Meryl Streek are in a similar vein to Bob Vylan, the Sleaford Mods and their ilk, taking aim at the institutions who have let us down continually for their own gain - we’re looking at you, Mr & Ms Politician!
UK’82 and Street Punk survivors, Criminal Damage storm the Arena stage in the same manners as Crown Court did yesterday. Their abrasive and confrontational assault is still on point and, although they may be long in the tooth, it’s quite obvious the spirit is still more than willing. Embodying all the attributes of what made Punk the pariah of the press back in the day are The Restarts, whose combination of simplistic Oi! vocals, UK’82 riffs and use of Sak elements mean these Londoners are dangerous on so many different levels.
Fresh from an appearance at Germany Wacken Open Air festival, The Sweet rock up at Rebellion to relive the Seventies hey-days of Glam. I was surprised at the amount of their catalogue I actually knew, with the likes of Blockbuster, Fox on the Run and Love is Like Oxygen, and, of course, Ballroom Blitz. Might only be minimal original members left, but The Sweet were a welcome Sunday sorbet following four days of (mostly) rampant Punk Rock.
Just to demonstrate that thesis, Svetlanas are net up on the Casbah and, as always, their performance is nothing short of frightening. Olga’s frenzied, high-energy stagecraft is both exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. Perennial Rebellion favourites Cockney Rejects are their usual selves, though it’s taking some getting used to not seeing Mick standing next to his brother. Jeff is his normal dervish as he flashes from one side of the stage to the other like a man half his age and, although the 2024 iteration is a completely new band, the classic Rejects material still stands: Oi! Oi! Oi!, War on the Terraces, Bad Man, Police Car, all fantastic, regardless of who’s in the band.
Marty and Bones have been flying the Lower Class Brats flag since 1995 and their combination of Street Punk rhythms and hardcore attitude, coupled with plenty of A Clockwork Orange imagery makes this a hugely enjoyable time.
Topping the bill and closing out the festival is Belfast legends and all-round punk royalty, Stiff Little Fingers. Still getting used to Jake with the close trim but from intro, Go for It, to closer Alternative Ulster SLF are on top form. Suspect Device, Nobody’s Heros, Tin Soldiers and more define the band and no show would be complete without them; newbie Hate Has No Home Here finds SLF extending their modern sound and suggest they are still a prolific writing machine. Just need that follow up to No Going Back to see the light of day soon. Please. Which just leaves a quick poke of my head into the Casbah to see Conflict calling for anarchy and sticking it to The Man, bringing the curtain down on Rebellion 2024.
While Rebellion will naturally see an aging demographic, there are enough young folk buying tickets to assure an amount of continuing success for the festival in the mid-term. It’s the bands like The Bar Stool Preachers, Riskee and the Ridicule, Mille Manders and the Shut Up and their ilk who have been charged with picking up the genre’s torch and stepping into the headliner slots and, on the strength of this – and previous year’s shows – those band’s ascension up the billing proves them capable. Packed stages while they play is also a damn good indicator.
With next year’s festival already scheduled for the weekend of 7 to the 10 August, and a bill beginning with The Undertones, The Exploited, The Selector and many more, you can almost bet the house that Rebellion 2025 will be equally manic.
Photo credits: Dod Morrison
