Montag, 16. Aug 2010, 13:57
Last weekend, I went for the 3rd year to the punk & skinhead Rebellion Festival 2010, in Blackpool, UK.
http://a.imageshack.us/img638/5091/rebellion10.jpg
This can easily be described as the foremost annual Oi-music festival in Britain, and its held at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool, a venue designed for ballroom dancing! Spread over six stages and four days, from early afternoon to late night, over 200 live performances were made. As the weekend ticket sold originally for £80 (GBP), this meant each act could be seen for as little as 40p each - of course trying to see them all would mean a lot of running around!
Personally I had highlighted 18 acts I wanted to see, from the programme, which I downloaded the night before the festival; and I had already 3 clashes! (Un)Fortunately one of those acts, KrawallBrüder cancelled and their middle-aged substitutes The Hooligans were not exactly what I would call a crowdpuller! That said, they weren't exactly bad as a group and deserved more from the festival goers than having to perform to an empty room!
The Hooliganshttp://a.imageshack.us/img251/4465/hooligansp.jpgKrawallBrüder's crowd has left…http://a.imageshack.us/img697/3009/kbscrowd.jpgfour skinheads from Switzerland on the right
The bands that I did get to see, were: 999, The Oppressed, Control, Department S, The Warriors, Argy Bargy, Hard Skin, The Last Resort, ABBA Sensation, Atilla The Stockbroker, Banditos, Ben Childs, Blitzkrieg, Choking Susan, Cockney Rejects, Cro-Mags, East End Badoes, Reazione, Section 5, Sonic Boom Six, The Aggrolites, The Godfathers & Acid Drop.
Control performs on the Olympia 2 stagehttp://a.imageshack.us/img828/9440/olympia2control.jpg
The stages at Rebellion were Olympia 1 & 2, Arena, Empress Ballroom (signposted "Ballroom" in the venue but only called "Empress" in the official programme), Almost Accoustic and Bizarre Bazar. There was a canteen that served cheap food all day and evening, amusement arcades, market stalls and merchandise stalls and seven bars! True to tradition (but why?) the biggest crowd pullers played the smallest rooms, so the qeues to some events were ridiculous whereas there was never a queue to the dual-stage Olympia room/carpark.
http://a.imageshack.us/img835/8236/olympia1.jpgcrowd watches the Olympia 1 stage
Unfortunately I didn't get to see Stomper 98, Krawallbrüder, The King Blues, nor Guns On The Roof, but that's how festivals are, fun - impulsive - unpredictable. Over the four days I saw loads of punks and skinheads, young and old! One young skinbaby was still in his (her?) pram, not old enough to sit up unaided, where's one old (original?) punk actually had a zimmer-frame! I'd say that the 30+ group certainly outnumbers the youngster but it is good to see that young people still are drawn to the classical punk and skinhead styles and not just as the media would have us believe, sk8punk or bonehead!
Speaking of boneheads, because Rebellion is marketed as apolitical, only such bands are supposed to be performing, but rather hypocritically they also let vocally left-wing bands, such as Los Fastidios, play there; and they miss no opportunity segregating the scene by spouting political propaganda "Cuba Libré"-style…
A nearby venue, the West Coast Rock Cafe, hosts the bands that falls on Rebellion's black list, these are right-wing/nationalist or "patriotic" bands, or bands that have played alongside/supported banned bands in the past (yes, there is a banned band list in the UK). This year, for a small extra charge of £4, you were offered (no I didn't go) a night of Code 1, Pressure 28, Die Hards, & Streetpunk Drunks.
Rebellion is family-orientated and as such there is a very mixed crowd, with many kids (most are also appropriately attired for a punk event) and the really hardcore punx tend to stay outside the venue the entire weekend, most of the punk acts perform in what is known as Olympia 1 or Olympia 2 which is what is Winter Garden's carpark normally. Closed Doors (car exits) facing the street outside the venue lets all the sound out and the drives usually are crowded with leather-clad punks doing what punks usually do when they congregate like this… The Cops usually keep watch from a distance and only intervene if things gets out of hands. A small but growing group of openly Gay Skins who also likes this music has begun to attend and this year I recognised at least three times as many faces as in 2009.
Tickets for Rebellion Festival 2011 is now on sale! Dates August 4-7th.
Cock Sparrer has already confirmed they are coming and this is their only live performance for 2011 - not to be missed!! Tickets £80 pre-sale and £100 on general release.
Finally, a special thank you to proprietors Gerry & William at Lolly's Hotel for the affordable accommodation!