Friday: Saw Bill the Crack Head walking around Rochester while I was going to Chatham to get my food for the week at the Health Store, I was hoping he wouldn't see me and harass me for money, he did see me but just stood across the street and yelled something that sounded like "YEAH SKINNER" over noise of my headphones. Left the house later after two, walked to Rochester train station and went to Victoria. Went to the second hand shop in Camden high street, found stuff by Beefeater, Full Blown Chaos and a CD single of Love Will Tear Us Apart by Swans, took the stuff up to the counter and saw Tony Sylvester from Dukes Of Nothing selling loads of new Stoner stuff, must be part of his job working for Southern Lord. Took a walk to All Ages Records but couldn't find anything I wanted, popped in Marks & Spencer's and got pineapple chunks and Clementine juice, (like Orange juice but twice as expensive). Ate the pineapple chunks then had a look in Waterstones for half an hour, then went to Virgin but left before I could be tempted to spend more money. Got something to eat at the Vegan Chinese place, they gave me a new card to get a free meal after buying twelve. Drank the Clementine juice and took a walk around the backstreets of Camden before some sort of queue formed outside the Underworld.
Me, You And The Atom Bomb: OK, not great.
The Loved Ones: Played all the songs I hoped they would except Over 50 Club, Hause kept doing these Joe Strummer moves for the whole set, at one point they played a new song, after which Hause said "It's nice to see kids bopping to the new song, they didn't even do that in Leeds" to which there was much cheering and booing "Not that there's anything wrong with Leeds" one kid yells something, Hause leans down to hear him "Northern cunts?" much cheering "I didn't say that".
Strike Anywhere: They hit stage and I get instantly crushed, I was kind of reminded of the Rise Against show a few month ago but this time I had a bit more freedom to move around, they played all the songs I wanted to hear except Earthbound, had fun down the front singing along, found out some of the songs had deeper meaning than I thought they did, like Allies is about the Christian far right in America trying to take Homosexuals rights away, Prisoner Echoes is about military recruiters coming on schools, colleges and even the Warped Tour in America and Chalkline is about rape (puts the line "walk alone on the streets tonight and fear nothing" in a whole new perspective). There was loads of mad stagediving, the best part was when they played Sunset on 32nd as their last song and let the kids scream "OFFICER, I'M NOT RESISTING YOU"
Got the train to Victoria, went in Marks & Spencer's the biggest drink I could find was a litre of Clementine juice (costing 2.99) then walked over to the Chinese place only to find they were out of tofu and rice so I walked across the street to the kebab and got chips in pita. Got on the train and found a seat to myself, ate then started reading, this fat middle aged couple sat across the table from me and split grease from their Burger King bag on my fucking book, then later the bloke pulls out his phone and plays a game with the sound right up, took my bag when I got up to take a piss and found a seat to myself until the train got to Chatham. Got a cab at exactly midnight but the cabbie didn't charge me double time, awfully nice of him. Had a drink of water when I got home and started flicking threw channels on the TV and came across and program on Channel Five with women talking about their vaginas.
Saturday: Left the house after two for Rochester station. Went straight to Virgin in Oxford Street and got the new Bronx album, then Sister Ray in Berwick Street and got the Sunn O))) & Boris album as well as the Sage Francis live album. Read comics in Foleys 'til five. The tube was packed on the Northern line, I guessed Camden Town was going to be over packed so I got off at Mornington Crescent and walked up the road to Mark's & Spencer's, got pineapple juice, then went to the Vegan Chinese place to get something to eat. I was right to avoid Camden Town, there was a massive fucking queue to get in. Got to Angel and walked up to Islington Academy. Had a look through the distros at the merch table found stuff by Propagandhi and Vitamin X (if there was one place I wouldn't expect to find an album by a Dutch Straight Edge band, it would be at an Anarcho Punk show) for just five pounds each. The Restarts were already well into their set, I didn't think too much of them but all the Mohawked idiots loved them, I've been reading a book about the early British Anarcho Punk scene and in the section about Conflict Colin said he had got fed up with the unoriginality of it all, well you have to wonder if he means that when he signs shit like this to his label. The one thing I liked about them was when they played an anti-racism song and the singer pulled out a newspaper advert that you see outside newsagents that said "ARSENAL FAN SPITS AT WOMAN WEARING VEIL" and said that kind of shit needs to be stamped out.
Lost Cherries: Still not sure about checking out their stuff but I thought they played good, the Punk kids who were slamming to The Restarts didn't seem to think much of them though, in fact one twat kept yelling "YOU'RE SHIT" toward s the end, why? Because they didn't have Mohawks? Because they had a female singer? Because their songs had something resembling melody? "Well that ain't fucking Punk!"
Subhumans: Before they started playing Dick found the newspaper advent The Restarts left behind. "That's sick, any Arsenal fans leave the building now." They played all the classics (great to hear I Don't Wanna Die and Work-Rest-Play-Die) and got covered in beer and spit from the Punks to show their appreciation, one twat ever threw a beer bottle at Dick, thankfully they only give out beer in plastic bottles at that venue.
Conflict: There was a longer than usual intro tape, I was expecting the whole band to burst out from behind the curtain but then took a look around and saw Colin sitting at the side of the stage waiting for the tape to end. They opened with Carlo Giuliani and noticed that their was a different drummer, I thought that Nathan must be busy with Capricorns, then they went into There's No Power, and no John or Sarah coming out and joining them like normal, so maybe Fear Of Fear are doing a tour or maybe they agreed to try something different but I hope they haven't left. They may have been three members down but they still played their nuts off like always, and even playing loads of stuff I've never seen them do live before like Barricades And Broken Dreams, Meat Means Murder, A Message To Who? (which I really wasn't expecting as it was one of their experimental Popy sounding songs) and much to my delight they even play This Is The A.L.F., Colin skipped a lot of the spoken parts in the song and changed the line "when the last vivisectionists blade is snapped" to "when the last vivisectionist is shot in the head we'll be one step nearer peace". They finished with The Final Conflict and Colin actually said "thank you for coming out and supporting us" which may not sound like much but it's very rare that Colin even speaks between songs except maybe to introduce songs. Went into the toilet and washed of the beer and spit off my face and head in the sink.
Got to Victoria, went straight to Marks & Spencer's and got a fruit salad and a litre of Clementine juice before getting my train.
Me, You And The Atom Bomb: OK, not great.
The Loved Ones: Played all the songs I hoped they would except Over 50 Club, Hause kept doing these Joe Strummer moves for the whole set, at one point they played a new song, after which Hause said "It's nice to see kids bopping to the new song, they didn't even do that in Leeds" to which there was much cheering and booing "Not that there's anything wrong with Leeds" one kid yells something, Hause leans down to hear him "Northern cunts?" much cheering "I didn't say that".
Strike Anywhere: They hit stage and I get instantly crushed, I was kind of reminded of the Rise Against show a few month ago but this time I had a bit more freedom to move around, they played all the songs I wanted to hear except Earthbound, had fun down the front singing along, found out some of the songs had deeper meaning than I thought they did, like Allies is about the Christian far right in America trying to take Homosexuals rights away, Prisoner Echoes is about military recruiters coming on schools, colleges and even the Warped Tour in America and Chalkline is about rape (puts the line "walk alone on the streets tonight and fear nothing" in a whole new perspective). There was loads of mad stagediving, the best part was when they played Sunset on 32nd as their last song and let the kids scream "OFFICER, I'M NOT RESISTING YOU"
Got the train to Victoria, went in Marks & Spencer's the biggest drink I could find was a litre of Clementine juice (costing 2.99) then walked over to the Chinese place only to find they were out of tofu and rice so I walked across the street to the kebab and got chips in pita. Got on the train and found a seat to myself, ate then started reading, this fat middle aged couple sat across the table from me and split grease from their Burger King bag on my fucking book, then later the bloke pulls out his phone and plays a game with the sound right up, took my bag when I got up to take a piss and found a seat to myself until the train got to Chatham. Got a cab at exactly midnight but the cabbie didn't charge me double time, awfully nice of him. Had a drink of water when I got home and started flicking threw channels on the TV and came across and program on Channel Five with women talking about their vaginas.
Saturday: Left the house after two for Rochester station. Went straight to Virgin in Oxford Street and got the new Bronx album, then Sister Ray in Berwick Street and got the Sunn O))) & Boris album as well as the Sage Francis live album. Read comics in Foleys 'til five. The tube was packed on the Northern line, I guessed Camden Town was going to be over packed so I got off at Mornington Crescent and walked up the road to Mark's & Spencer's, got pineapple juice, then went to the Vegan Chinese place to get something to eat. I was right to avoid Camden Town, there was a massive fucking queue to get in. Got to Angel and walked up to Islington Academy. Had a look through the distros at the merch table found stuff by Propagandhi and Vitamin X (if there was one place I wouldn't expect to find an album by a Dutch Straight Edge band, it would be at an Anarcho Punk show) for just five pounds each. The Restarts were already well into their set, I didn't think too much of them but all the Mohawked idiots loved them, I've been reading a book about the early British Anarcho Punk scene and in the section about Conflict Colin said he had got fed up with the unoriginality of it all, well you have to wonder if he means that when he signs shit like this to his label. The one thing I liked about them was when they played an anti-racism song and the singer pulled out a newspaper advert that you see outside newsagents that said "ARSENAL FAN SPITS AT WOMAN WEARING VEIL" and said that kind of shit needs to be stamped out.
Lost Cherries: Still not sure about checking out their stuff but I thought they played good, the Punk kids who were slamming to The Restarts didn't seem to think much of them though, in fact one twat kept yelling "YOU'RE SHIT" toward s the end, why? Because they didn't have Mohawks? Because they had a female singer? Because their songs had something resembling melody? "Well that ain't fucking Punk!"
Subhumans: Before they started playing Dick found the newspaper advent The Restarts left behind. "That's sick, any Arsenal fans leave the building now." They played all the classics (great to hear I Don't Wanna Die and Work-Rest-Play-Die) and got covered in beer and spit from the Punks to show their appreciation, one twat ever threw a beer bottle at Dick, thankfully they only give out beer in plastic bottles at that venue.
Conflict: There was a longer than usual intro tape, I was expecting the whole band to burst out from behind the curtain but then took a look around and saw Colin sitting at the side of the stage waiting for the tape to end. They opened with Carlo Giuliani and noticed that their was a different drummer, I thought that Nathan must be busy with Capricorns, then they went into There's No Power, and no John or Sarah coming out and joining them like normal, so maybe Fear Of Fear are doing a tour or maybe they agreed to try something different but I hope they haven't left. They may have been three members down but they still played their nuts off like always, and even playing loads of stuff I've never seen them do live before like Barricades And Broken Dreams, Meat Means Murder, A Message To Who? (which I really wasn't expecting as it was one of their experimental Popy sounding songs) and much to my delight they even play This Is The A.L.F., Colin skipped a lot of the spoken parts in the song and changed the line "when the last vivisectionists blade is snapped" to "when the last vivisectionist is shot in the head we'll be one step nearer peace". They finished with The Final Conflict and Colin actually said "thank you for coming out and supporting us" which may not sound like much but it's very rare that Colin even speaks between songs except maybe to introduce songs. Went into the toilet and washed of the beer and spit off my face and head in the sink.
Got to Victoria, went straight to Marks & Spencer's and got a fruit salad and a litre of Clementine juice before getting my train.