Time to start another year's gigging off with a trip the 100 Club. This gig's part of the Resolution Festival and also part of this year's celebration of 40 years of Punk, so of course it's a way to see some of the people and bands who were there at the start.
We missed the first band but were really there to see Menace and The UK Subs. I can't remember when the last time I saw Menace was but I do remember seeing the band's guitarist and one of Menace's singers playing in the Australian Stooges as well as buying loads of records from his stall in Camden Market over the years so it was good to see Finn up on stage.
They opened with One Two three Four, which drew up the band's blueprint for short sharp punk songs with terrace chant choruses and a pop edge to them. Not sure of the song titles so these are guesses, but as I recall the next up was Insane Society where three of the band sang and made sure we knew how insane the world we live in is and you can't argue with that, can you?
Last Night had a good feeling of "oh my god what did I get up to and can I remember any of it?" My Life My Way is as good a punk manifesto song as you can get. They put a huge grin on most of the packed crowds faces with Man at C & A which sort of morphed at one point into 64 77 was my Number as they went a bit dub punk before returning to the scorn for C & A.
Carry No Banners was urgent and angry as expected and went straight into Live For Today and we all need to do that for sure. They then reached the sing along part of the set with So Fuck You and, yes, the chorus got us all singing "Fuck You!" over and over again and why not.
I'm Civilized takes good aim at the idiots running the show and the manners they try to impose on us. It was followed by GLC, the band's sort of hit taking aim at the good old GLC in the days when it was a target for both love and hate before Maggie destroyed it in 1986. They also gladly encouraged a stage invasion to get some backing singers for it.
I think it was 77 the Truth next as the stage cleared and the guest guitarist played a second tune before handing the guitar back to Finn for a song I'm not even guessing a title for!!
They closed the set with a great riot through Ace Of Spades as a tribute to Lemmy whose funeral was being shown after the show. It was a good spunky version that had all of us singing along to it.
Soon enough it was time for Charlie Harper and the boys to once again stick two fingers up at anyone who ever said he was too old to be a punk while wearing a Lemmy t-shirt in tribute to another fallen hero. It was good to see them in a small packed club rather than on a festival stage as I have always done in the past. So apologies for song title mistakes as I like the Subs but am not a huge fan.
They opened as they meant to go on fast and furious with what I think was Sick Velveteen, but either way Charlie was shouting at us that we were Criminal and taking the mick out of the wig the drummer came on stage wearing. They went pretty much straight into You Don't Belong which saw the mosh pit start to grow a bit and also some very nifty guitar work.
Soon enough Charlie was singing about how they Don't Give A Shit and, well, we all knew what he meant. That then flew into (I think) Rockers, which had the place going nuts once more.
They then had the first in-between song break for some technical, like, tuning of the guitars before they launched into Down On The Farm at a ferocious place which didn't let up as it segued into Hell Is Other People. There was no monkeying around before they flew through Monkeys like a bunch of chimps on speed.
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Emotional Blackmail was next up for the blitz through the classics and rapidly followed by a well-boiled and slightly stewed, steaming Eighteen Wheels that helped prove that This Chaos we call civilization can only be saved by the power of Punk Rock & Roll.
Charlie was soon in Fear Of Girls once more. I don't know why, maybe it's the pale blue frames on his shades or that Deadhead tattoo he fears they'll change him, but we know he'll never change, not now. Bobby's Dead was full of pain and angst as the guitars ground into our ears. The anger kept rising on Police State where Charlie was angry that something had gone wrong and not just Lemmy dying neither.
Suicidal Girls seemed to be sung by two thirds of the crowd with almost as much energy as Charlie put into it. Tomorrows Girls followed it, fittingly.
Of Course Warhead got the biggest pit of the night and in a week where the North Koreans were letting off very scary bombs for the fun of it that it seems that this song is once again a song for today. Sadly, as I'm sure we all hoped this insanity would be over by now. As would the need for a Riot Squad to come and disrupt our lives and shake things up.
Stranglehold made sure they kept their grip on the attention of everyone in the 100 Club in time for them to close the set with Rare Disease. That one really just left us all wanting more from the living legend that is Charlie Harper and the rest of the current line-up of UK Subs.
After a good bout of football-style chanting of "UK Subs!!" they came back out and opened the encore by paying tribute to Lemmy with Charlie telling a story about going to see him in Hawkwind before they played the first Motorhead single; a cover of Louie Louie that just blasted through the place and had most of us singing the chorus. CID, meanwhile, was as full of bile as you'd expect.
I Live In A Car flew by like a mix between a song for the homeless and the life of a touring punk who knew it was time for some sort of Party in Paris. Or London or anywhere we can think of really before they closed the encore with...was it We Don't want Your Fucking War? Well we don't. But we did want more of the UK Subs.
Yes they came back for a well-earned second encore that meant we needed to Deconstruct at a furious pace. Then they finally finished off with a song I have down as I Wanna Be but I'm sure is something else. But ho cares, for by this time they had proved why they are still in demand and why we should cherish Charlie Harper for as long as he can put on shows like this. A great start to the gigging year. Seconds out!
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