This four band line-up at The Dublin Castle was a Birthday party for Sid Truelove guitarist and original drummer of Rubella Ballet. Parliament Ruins were already onstage when we arrived, they feature Frankie on lead vocals, who is the nephew of the recently departed Colin from Conflict. Parliament Ruins are very young and still learning how to perform, which excuses all the songs sounding very similar, I'm sure the lyrics are all worth hearing and socially conscious, but they need someone to teach them some microphone technique for live shows, so all us old duffers can figure out what Parasite or any of the others songs were about, Rauri's drumming was powerful and totally energetic as they barked out some of the most hardcore vocals, I liked the innocence of telling us a new song didn't have a title yet, or might be Rubens song, the guitars were loose and fierce with a healthy dose of chaotic energy, especially on the closing song about Civil War, if they keep at it they should hopefully improve and be well worth seeing next year.
I've wanted to see Brigandage for a long time and hearing they had re-formed I managed to miss them at Rebellion. This set didn't disappoint, from opening with Fragile Michelle was stalking the stage and letting us know just how Fragile she was, while the post punk guitars set up a dark mood, sorry I couldn't find out who the current band members were, but the guy in the directional shirt really drove on the song I have down as Red Light Boredom, that saw Michelle playing about with her bondage outfit, before getting very dark on what I guess was If You Wanna Die it had a taut dangerous feel.
Heresy might have been the fretless guitar, but it sounded great with deep bass notes and the right edge for Michelle to sing over, while pulling her trousers up again and complaining about her bra in between songs. The Art Of Stealing got most of the audience singing along with them and sounded like a perfect lesson in punk songwriting! Ripped & Torn was brilliantly intense, while Michelle was clucking a bit for I Need Something getting a bit scratchy. V W Babies was one of the songs I recognized no matter how long it is since I last heard it, Angel is something we all need one of, the guitars wove the perfect spell to get everyone dancing in time for Michelle and the boys to play Hide & Seek, before they closed with a great long take on Let It Rot with a few false endings that made clear I should have seen them at Rebellion and need to see Brigandage again.
Next on were Hagar The Womb in their normal chaotic bouncy anarcho punk way opening with Showing Off, that featured Mitch Showing Off that he was back to full strength, with his bones all healed, he had on a track suit of skulls and bones, none of them broken. Ruth introduced Idolization that was brilliantly ramshackle bouncy fun, while the warnings of Idolization are sadly more pertinent now than ever. The crimes of being a woman over 30 in the music bizz were tackled brilliantly by these Visible Women, unafraid to be smiling, laughing and having a good time on stage, rather than at home doing the ironing. They all had That Sinking Feeling that Karen mentioned about the price of her drink, before she spilled it mid song, like a total boss frontwoman, while Lorna letting loose on guitar.
They urged us to live a Perfect Life never fitting in, never giving up and never joining the mainstream, no matter the crib sheets were now soaked and running this still sounded perfect. My notes now go mad like Karen's rant about Motherhood. They are of course Still Hated By The Daily Mail for daring to be real women enjoying life, loving immigrants etc. Life Of Lies is still a huge rallying cry and needed to be heard even more in the 2020's than the 1980's. Song Of Deep Hate had almost everyone singing along, a total rampage they were having loads of fun.
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They then paid tribute to Colin from Conflict and all the others we've lost on Song For Those We've Lost, this makes you think of the good times with old friends. On Dressed To Kill Mitch went walk about in the audience, posing for bad photos, before they were joined onstage by Rook Faulkner who donned the essential Rubber lemon head mask and sunglasses for Fare Dodging With The Mekons Rider that was on a split single they put out with The Mekons, this was great singalong fun for the behaviour Hagar The Womb are legendary for, making sure we were all smiling.
Finally it was time for the birthday boy to get onstage with the band he's been in since 1979 Rubella Ballet, one of the first true day-glo punks, with the Day-glo backdrop in place, they are all in traditional Rubella Ballet outfits, they launched into Ballet Dance with Zillah's incredible spiked hair being it’s own lighting effect. Unemployed tackled the mixed emotions of being Unemployed and not earning money but somehow surviving and improvising. By this point my song titles are guesses and They Must Be Insane had all the anger we need in these times with Zillah sounding a bit like Vi Subversa while Emily's bass held it down. They made clear that we were all on Planet Punk and had better bounce around and have fun with them.
I think it was before False Promises that they asked for the lights to be turned off, so we could really see the day-glo working, it looked great and Sid was getting ready to make sure we all knew that we are All Potential Terrorists, a song that we all need to heed the words of in the 2020's mad world. Going Down had a cool drum intro from Kath with Emily's bass getting darker. 42 degrees F was about as hot and sweaty as it was in the Dublin Castle by this point. Zillah made clear we must find a way not to Live In Fear, far easier said than done of course.
Slant And Slide I think was next for the bouncy punk rampage they were on, before they made clear what they deemed acceptable behaviour on Love Life. They closed by paying tribute to Colin from Conflict and were joined by Mitch and Ruth on Backing vocals, Sid played drums and Franky sang Tube Disasters, that was sing along chaos, that only left us with time to sing happy birthday to Sid as Zillah brought out the cakes at the end of a great fun 66th birthday party for Sid!
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