i meet BigJ from the bus stop after i finish work and we drop our stuff off with H to take back to the house and leg it off to the train. about 45 minutes later we're in Caaaaaaaaaaaardiv and it takes us about 25 minutes to find the sodding gig even though you can spit from the trainstation and hit it where we promptly bump into Dor from BER (or rather, whilst reversing the van he nearly bumps into us...) only to find out that Lee is ill and can't make it and the rest of them have only just turned up so we've got a bit of time for dinner.
a bugerking and 2 pints later and the doors open so we pop in. Dor has sorted the guestlist in Lee's abscence and we head for the bar at which point we bump into Stu who gives us the cd's with their latest studio recordings on from Lee. i'm far too chuffed, however, to notice that my case is empty whereas BigJ's has a cd in it until Dor points this out... we all have a laugh about this being typical of Lee to forget to put the cd in and typical of me to be the one who cops the empty case at which point we bump into BigBen and are astounded by how unbig he is these days and have a chat about him putting on The Evens in Swansea on monday and then i notice at least half of BER legging it in to the loo which is a sure sign they're about to go on stage as (like the true professionals they are) they all like a pre-emptive slash before a gig...
so Black Eye Riot get on stage whilst the club is still reasonably empty and (wether as a result of the whole Swansea/Cardiff thing or not) most people aren't paying a lot of attention until they open with 'Bitch Slap' from their recent split 7" with Charger and despite Lee's abscence get on with what they do best... putting the fear of god up un-expecting casual observers. me, BigJ and some random young lass are immediately fists in the air screaming along despite the fact that clearly none of us know many of the words and the shambolic Oi-Sludge-Doomcore preceeds to tear Cardiff the preverbial 'new one'. now i rant furiously about how much more Hardcore these boyo's are than most other bands saddled with that label these days but something i haven't mentioned is how much heavier they keep getting as well, even without Lee on second guitar they've still damn near pummelled the audience into submission within the first few songs and the rest of the audience is forced to start paying attention. add to this the great comedy that is The Willis and Dor Show (W: "this is a song called 'First Blood'. it's about my favourite film 'First Blood'." D: "It's fucking Saturday night fever Willis, you're not fooling anyone..." ) plus the bands inenviable ability to be doing everything right and it to still go wrong (most notable example being Stu hitting the Wah for his feedback solo only for it to suddenly all go a bit weird and proggy leading Dor and Willis to do a true comedy genius synchronised double take mid fist-in-the-air-comedy-punk-pose and Stu's resultant look of first abject confusion leading to mild embarrasment. priceless!). still, as the (fortunately quite lenghty for a support slot) set belts past them at full tilt including all the other tracks recorded for the split and a few of album 'No Hope, No Future, No Worries' highlights ('Bite The Snake' and the utterly monsterous 'Instinct' amongst them) before closing with their all time (for want of a better word) anthem 'The Cunt', the crowd are now paying a lot more attention. all in all, heavier, nastier, faster and above all else, more fun than most other stuff out there at the moment. fantastic.
Disorder... hmmmmm... how best to describe them... imagine you're in a east london squat somewhere in the region of twenty, twenty five odd years ago, there's a party and some lads have begged, borrowed and stolen equipment to play a few agit-prop-UK-hardcore-punk songs for the evenings entertainment. now keep the band exactly the same, give them a record contract and dump them in the here and now. doesn't sound like too good an idea, does it...? it wasn't. the main problem i have with bands like this is they do exactly what i've just described... ignore the last twenty years coz if they don't it means they never achieved anything from all they've tried to do. the fact that they clearly used to jam on Discharge songs doesn't help highlight their short comings. they're not bad per se... just... oh you get the idea. they have a few cider lovers dancing throughout but it's far from the beginnings of The Revolution they seem to be after. the fact that we missed their first few songs because we didn't notice any difference between the cd's being played inbetween bands and them is about the most level criticism i can manage.
Discharge step up next, confident that this is their crowd and they're right. from the off everyone is smiling, shouting along and dancing that little bouncy shimmy dance that old school punks are so fond of as they blast through what (i assume, i have no prior knowledge of either them or Disorder) is a much loved back catalogue of crustpunk classics with all the appropriate sneers and sloganeering and it's all more interesting than Disorder... er... just. basically, as i said at the start this really isn't gonna be a fair review as i have no real appreciation of this style of punk rock, or indeed, any old school UK punk rock for that matter. 'Never Mind The Bollocks... Here's The Sex Pistols' never changed my life, my dad wasn't a Clash or a Jam fan, basically... punk was, is and always will be a rather staid and uninteresting second cousin to Metal for me and frankly if i keep going i'm just gonna end up punkbashing for the sheer sake of it against two bands that have earned their stars well and had a genuine effect on (at least certain) parts of the UK musical landscape. i guess i really should remember that BER were all dancing to Discharge and Charger's logo is just Discharge's with the 'Dis' taken off and and extra 'r' stuck on the end. as a result i shall end by saying that Disorder were ok and Discharge were good but to remind you all, fair readers, that i own pretty much everything BER have released and nothing that Discharge have...
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