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Review: 'Rebellion Festival Blackpool Winter Gardens Day 1'
'Goldblade, Flipper, Peter & The Test Tube Babies,'   

-  Album: 'Viki Vortex & The Cumshots, Geoffrey Oi!Cott,' -  Label: 'The Long Game, Resistance 77, Wolf Bites Boy,'
-  Genre: 'Punk/New Wave' -  Release Date: '1.8.19.'-  Catalogue No: 'Delinquents, The Pukes, Supla S & V, The Cundeez'

Our Rating:
As usual I have been looking forward to rebellion all year as my favorite weekend of the year. Our journey up was smooth and by the time we arrived and got our wrist bands sorted we got into the Winter Gardens by about 2 o'clock so had already missed System Of Hate sadly, but with so much on we always end up missing loads of bands we want to see as well as the 45 bands we did manage to see.

This years festival is dedicated to the memory of Kathy Rocker who lost her battle to #fuckCancer and almost every band that I saw dedicated a song to her memory and as thanks for all her hard work over the years helping to make Rebellion happen every year, she will be sorely missed by everyone who knew her or who has attended or played at Rebellion.

Our first bad this year were The Cundeez who were playing the Club Casbah stage that is a huge black hole of a venue that was starting to fill up and as soon as we got our first ciders of the weekend we got down the front for some good Scottish punk and all of this 4 piece were wearing Kilts. The in-between song banter was really funny and they sing in Dundish or the local Dundee version of Scots while telling us all Yir Talking Shite and Rapping about the mean streets of Dundee before the singer Gary switched to playing his bagpipes for the two instrumentals or should that be Manc covers they played of Love Will Tear Us Apart and Ever Fallen In Love With Someone that left everyone smiling. A great fun start to Rebellion 2019 for us.

We then took a seat in the Almost Acoustic bar for Supla S&V Feat Victoria Wells and I have to say they weren't as much fun as his previous band Brothers Of Brazil were live. Although this could have been the acoustic setting and we missed the electric set they played on Friday. Supla was on Acoustic Guitar and most of the vocals and Victoria played some nice keyboards the best song of the set for me was Waiting In Tokyo.

We then continued our sort of lazy start by going and taking a seat in the Opera House for The Pukes who have slimmed down to a 5 piece and are promoting the band's new album Never Mind The Buffet album that's out next month. And from the moment they opened with All About You from the new album it was clear they are as much fun as ever with Debs and Clara as sarky and sassy as ever and of course the set is peppered with great covers and originals, they got everyone singing along to Holiday In Cambodia and Because Your Young before a real sing along rampage through Part time Punks to close a great set.

We then diverted into The Arena to catch 3 songs by Delinquents who are a young (well young by Rebellion standards) pop punk band from Dundee, yes our second band from Dundee in just a few hours, but this lot weren't as much fun as The Cundeez although the cover of The Slickee Boys This Party Sucks did put a smile on my face and got a good few people singing along to it.

We Then went to Club Casbah for the rest of Wolf Bites Boy set who are angry and reasonably issues based while having a good time punk band whose Bassist Rob Passey I know I've seen play in a few other bands over the years. They also got us all to Raise A Glass to Kathy Rocker. Before letting us know about The Streets That I Call Home and insisting that we all Wear Our Hearts With Pride. They got a good crowd and really got everyone going by the end of their set.

They were followed by Resistance 77 who played another classic set of Skinhead Oi! Classics like usual with Ian Hodson as ever leading us all in a proper terrace chant sing along to among others Fear On The Streets, Punks Not Dead But I'm Not Far Off seems more poignant as the years go by and Stuart Meadows drumming on Chelsea Girl was immense and the band closed with a real rampaging fist pumping sing along to True Punk And Oi!

We then went back to the Pavilion for most of The Long Games set, the last time we saw them they were still called Skaciety but nothing much has changed with the new name they are still a really good fun young Ska punk band with a great trombonist. The topicality of songs like No Hope For The Future and No Change went down well as did the Country Metal song they have.

We stayed in the Pavilion for a band that spend more time in the Pavilion than most Geoffrey Oi!Cott who are still Yorkshires premier Cricket Oi! Band who as ever play in there whites and open with Pictures Of Lillee that gets us all going in time for some Fanny Batter On A Sticky Wicket to bring things down a notch as one or two people worried they might have Dartitis which was probably why they started singing Glory Glory Gary Thompson in the first place. They wished us all a very happy Yorkshire Day with Welcome to Yorkshire before bowling a few Beamers at us and as ever batting a few tennis balls at the crowd and as ever Dawn Of The Dickie Birds went down a storm another great innings with no need to go to the Pavilion early.

The Pavilion kept us in place for Viki Vortex & The Cumshots who played a rather similar set to the last couple of years of good day glow cartoon punk with Fluffer as ever standing out as did Countdown to A Breakdown, as the set went on the crowd seem to thin out and it was hard to Cover Up the gaps no matter how good Police Car sounded this was a bit of a muted set.

We then dived over to the Club Casbah where it seemed like everyone else had already gone as it was absolutely rammed for Peter & The Test Tube Babies storming set that had everyone singing along to Up Yer Bum before Peter told us in no uncertain terms it was None Of Your Fucking Business, they are so much fun and the place was like a party as everyone screamed I'm A Maniac and a huge pit opened up for Banned From the Pubs before they finished with Blown Out Again that left everyone wanting a few more insults from Peter to make there weekends.

We then went into The Empress Ballroom for a chance to see the first ever British show by Flipper the American Hardcore legends whose current line up features Mighty Mike Watt on Bass, Ted Falconi on Guitar, Steve De Pace on Drums and David Yow on Vocals. They sounded pretty immense from the beginning and managed to play the only two songs I knew of there's at the start of the set as David Yow stalked the stage and spent half the first song about a 1000 years in the audience. Ha Ha Ha went down a storm with a great sludgy sound and Mike Watt grinning even more than he did in his years in The Stooges.
I noticed they had a fan sitting right in the mosh pit in a wheelchair with a respirator and as David Yow went into the audience for the second time in the set I think during The Way Of the World the guy in the chair reached up and David grabbed his hand and then something miraculous happened as the guy rose out of his chair as if he had just been healed by the power of Flipper, not only did he stand up but he even managed to start moshing, eventually the guys carer moved his wheelchair out of the pit as he didn't need it any more, yes Flipper really can heal the sick!! They were wonderfully unpredictable and David Yow is the sort of frontman you can't keep your eyes off as he stalked the stage while the sludgy riffs just connected to the far smaller than it should have been audience, still the fans next to me kept insisting this was an Historic performance and I won't argue with that as they closed with a gloriously affirming version of Sacrifice as the guy who had been in the wheelchair was by this point crowd surfing making this the set of the day for us and one of the sets we spent the rest of Rebellion talking about a truly unforgettable set.

There was only one band who could follow something as miraculous as Flippers first ever UK show and that was Goldblade who are playing this year's festival as a special tribute to Kathy Rocker on The Pavilion stage. John Robb was joking that Jukebox Generation should be re-named MP3 generation, but damn the song still sounds great and the adrenal High Octane rock and roll they specialize in sounded as Out Of Control as ever as they went full on Psycho on us with a proper wrecking pit and as ever they closed with a super long version of Do You Believe in the Power Of Rock & Roll that we had to say Yes to after seeing what we'd seen during Flippers set, hell yes we believe in the power alright. As ever Goldblade were extremely good and for us a great way to end our first day at Rebellion, as no matter how legendary Fear are, I sadly can't name a single song by them to keep us in the Winter Gardens. Still it was a very good start to the festival and we wandered off in search of chips.

  author: simonovitch

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