Scarborough Punk festival

Report and videos from the festival (Scarborough Punk Festival) and from the live in Manchester by Stiff Little Fingers

In the enchanting and almost surreal seaside scenario of the Scarborough SPA, filled for the occasion with mohawks, Dr. Martens and punk t-shirts, the 2023 edition of the Scarborough Punk Festival was held over the weekend of 25 and 26 March. The event featured Scottish band The Exploited as headliners and a plethora of bands that have shaped the history of British punk rock (and beyond) such as U. K. Subs, Cockney Rejects, GBH, Discharge, Conflict, The Outcasts, The Boys, Anti-Nowhere League and many more. A kind of revival of punk rock from another era, with some of the bands on their last tour, although still capable of delivering top-notch live performances. This was particularly true for the Cockney Rejects, who wrapped up the first day of the festival with a near perfect live show and arguably the best setlist of the festival. With their unmistakable cockney accent and flat caps, the band from the east end of London performed all their best-known songs with the only exception of the notorious West Ham United anthem, probably not appropriate enough to the North Yorkshire environment.

A notable mention and massive thanks must go of course to the second night’s headliners, The Exploited, especially to their frontman Wattie Buchan. Despite his recent illnesses, the vocalist of the band appeared on stage in very good shape, offering the audience a remarkable live performance and a heart-warming double encore, with fans joining in on stage to chant the song Sex And Violence. As a video, we would have liked to share Fuck The System, but for the uncompromising and unquestionable Youtube Community (with whom any interaction or request of explanation is perfectly useless, as they do not bother to provide any), the song seems to possess content that is too scandalous for minors… Therefore, we will make do with the more ‘placid’ Beat The Bastards.

In the light of the most recent conflict in Ukraine, several bands have naturally and justifiably lashed out at political leaders old and new and have played songs against wars and conflicts that belong to other epochs, but are nonetheless still sadly relevant. U.K. Subs performed for the occasion their classic Warhead, a song that saw the appearance onstage of The Exploited’s Wattie Buchan helping on vocals.

Likewise, Charlie Harper’s band did not disappoint, engaging the audience with several major successes, including Emotional Blackmail, Rockers and New York State Police, for which we have videos on our KTV channel, and Stranglehold, of course, at the end of their performance.

GBH, or Charged GBH, whichever you prefer, delivered a powerful and exciting show characterised by plenty of their best-known songs, with a rendition of City Baby Attacked By Rats followed closely by City Baby’s Revenge. Two classics from the Birmingham outfit that gave the titles to their first two albums of, respectively, 1982 and 1984.

Violent, relentless and on the verge of auditory limits, even for this type of spectators (and there was little doubt about that), was Discharge’s live set, with a more than juvenile Jeff ‘JJ’ Janiak on vocals. It is no surprise that they are one of the inspirational bands of Metallica and Slayer, which, like GBH, navigate in that crossover region between punk and metal.

More hard-rock inclined are the Anti-Nowhere League, a historic British band formed in 1979 and led by vocalist and frontman Animal (Nick Culmer) who in their sounds and even more in their song topics resemble Motorhead. Pizza Tramp, on the other hand, present themselves as a band that oscillates between hardcore punk and nonsensical entertainment, with the singer adding exquisite comic interludes between furious, neurotic, short-lived and sometimes even improvised songs. Hung Like Hanratty are another intriguing formation that addresses sensitive issues and ordinary life’s affairs such as in the hilarious Clean Up Your Dog Shit. On stage were also many other historic bands such as Conflict, The Outcasts, The Boys and Subhumans making for an intense and memorable two days in the unusual (but hardly summery) setting of the Yorkshire resort.

A band surprisingly absent from the Scarborough Punk Festival 2023, but nonetheless very much represented in the audience’s clothing, are Northern Irish band Stiff Little Fingers, who instead performed the day prior to the festival, which was Friday 24 March, in a crowded The Academy in Manchester. A live event that KTV’s camera naturally couldn’t miss, capturing on video three of the songs that closed the concert, featured in the Belfast band’s first standout album: Inflammable Material. An album that at the time also became the first major commercial success for the renowned London record shop/label Rough Trade. Still highly followed, by an audience of passionate and perhaps a little seasoned English punk rockers, after so many years Stiff Little Fingers continue to guarantee truly effective and high-quality live performances.

After all, as the indomitable band The Exploited have been saying (for many years now): Punk’s not dead! Alas, these bands are by no means immortal and there is a need for a testimonial passage which, if one judges by the age of the actors, audience included, is not taking place. But let’s not despair: Punk’s not dead, it’s just recovering…

Article by Emiliano Liberatori (The Konspirators) – Rome 04/04/2023

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