Blackpool Rebellion: Dublin bands shake up ‘probably the greatest punk festival on Earth’

A raucous sound. It smashes out from tight venue stages. Plectrums. Drumsticks. Rattling wires. Down the decades. It bangs off the bar and feeds back into the amp. This is noise. Passion. Style. The flicker of some eternal flame.

Dublin is a forcefield. Bands have aligned with the spirit and energy of the mid-1970s and are playing to dedicated crowds in modest city venues. Fibber Magees. Whelan’s. The Grand Social. The Wild Duck. A saunter into town furnishes apparent time-warp options. Who’s that playing Gary Gilmore’s Eyes? It’s Paranoid Visions having engulfed TV Smith temporarily. Who’s that on stage berating the bar for the price of the drink? It’s The Lee Harveys singer, Bitzy Fitz: taut, commanding and spewing social critique with a smile.

Three Dublin bands are heading over to play at Blackpool’s vast Rebellion Punk Festival in August. The Lee Harveys are among them: “I love playing Rebellion — this is our fifth or sixth time. It’s fantastic, the biggest punk festival in the world: 350 bands. Rebellion is like a family. The same people go every year.”

Bitzy plays catchy punk tunes with Sam, Paul and Peter. A few months ago, they released a four-track vinyl EP produced by Rat Scabies of The Damned. Bitzy formed The Strougers in 1977 and played on the same bill as U2 but “ceased trading in 1981″. After a “30-year hiatus in the wilderness”, he put The Lee Harveys together. Returning to study, he became a drug counsellor. “To paraphrase Joe Strummer, punk is about having exemplary manners towards your fellow human beings. Punk arrived at the right time in my life, at 16 or 17. It’s about getting off your arse, doing things for yourself and not expecting life to land in your lap.”

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‘Wave of optimism’

Peter Jones plays guitar with the Harveys and Paranoid Visions. He reckons a demographic in their late 50s is back at gigs. “In the 1980s if a bloke who was 55 or 56 wandered into one of our gigs, you would assume he was the drug squad or somebody’s dad. Now nobody cares.”

What’s playing Rebellion like? “It’s a huge honour — I think this is Paranoid Visions’ 15th year. You feel this camaraderie. It’s all hugs and going for a drink. You can wander around with 10,000 people and not feel lonely. People talk of being hit by this massive wave of optimism, excitement and friendliness.”

The Vulpynes are also off to Rebellion. Formed six years ago, the two-piece are wary of the overt punk label. “We are part of the punk community rather than being an exclusively punk band,” says singer and guitarist Molly. “The punk scene in Dublin is very loyal.”

“The other bands are telling people in Blackpool to check us out,” says drummer Kaz. “I think there are more punk bands starting now — but that is just Covid. That really dented the scene.” Molly concurs: “Being dormant for two years has given people a massive kick to get back out there.”

Does Molly see any danger of Blackpool being a punk museum? “They have some big old bands but it doesn’t stop people seeking new music. We are doing a gig there before the festival on Wednesday night. There’s a strong sense all the Irish punks will be there together.” And Kaz is eager to see Gary Numan.

‘Spirit and integrity’

Tony St Ledger plays with Dublin veterans Trouble Pilgrims. They are not off to Rebellion this year: “Truth is I’m not a punk but an out-and-out new waver. What punk did was democratising. Anybody can get out there and form an essence, once you have an honest spirit and some integrity.”

St Ledger reaches back into “the conservative, really dark Ireland in which we lived”. Lured by a free electric band in the 1980s, he jacked in his advertising job and went to London. “I only started living when I got out of school. It was hell for me. Go find the sounds you love and be lucky and get into a band that collaborates. We have done that in the Pilgrims with Pete and Johnny and Steve and Bren. We ended up with two albums against all the odds — Dark Shadows and Rust; and Blood, Glass and Gasoline.”

The music of Philip Chevron, late singer of The Radiators, the band that predated Trouble Pilgrims, inspires St Ledger “to believe in Dublin and call Dublin out for what it is. I keep going into town because I don’t want to be a stranger. I see the city as full of ghosts.”

Lecturer in music subculture Michael Murphy is alert to musical ghosts. We recently met on Pearse Street by the long-gone Magnet. “Right now, the punk-inflected situation in Dublin is thrilling,” he says. “For anyone part of the tiny scene of DC Nien, Chant! Chant! Chant!, The Prunes, Microdisney, Stano, Stars of Heaven, even My Bloody Valentine, all of the prophecies are being fulfilled.”

‘Genesis of attitudes’

Murphy believes Dublin’s Girl Band and their France 98 EP in 2012 “ushered in a new blast of musical and cultural energy laced with punk and post-punk attitude. Retromania is rife, but so are committed stances on rights. You can trace the genesis of attitudes back to the punk moment of 1976.”

Niall McGuirk, his collaborator in the publisher and promoter Hope Collective, sees that moment unfolding: “There’s a sudden glut filling the void. I hope there will be a surge in spaces for gigs and events over the next 12 months.” The pandemic? “It stole two years of co-operative creativity. The people who hit the ground running seem to be the older cohort, but there are many young bands. The difference is both sets are working together.” Murphy muses: “Shockingly, punk probably has more followers now than at any stage in its history.”

Behind the anger, sentiment and wry nostalgia, this is Dublin as a docking station for decades of dissipated energy. This is Ireland reminding itself of when it was an outpost, a thing from another planet. The years have caught up with us.

Rebellion Punk Festival, Blackpool, August 4th-7th. Paranoid Visions, The Lee Harveys and Vulpynes, along with The Outcasts, play at The Pavilion. rebellionfestivals.com

Paranoid Visions: A hell of a legacy

“The place of Paranoid Visions in history is monumental. They just kept going. They were so hated for so long. But their spirit and defiance set them apart and fuelled them. That’s not a bad way to live. It’s a hell of a legacy!” — Dr Michael Murphy, IADT

Singer Deko’s declarations

Punk just means other, different, yourself, not the same, not for sale, nobody’s fool, individual. All of those things appealed to me in the late 1970s, and still interest me 45 years on. That is the way I have lived my life.

I formed my band in 1980 called Insane Youth as my weapon for self-expression and communication. We became Paranoid Visions in late 1981. I’m still here, still rocking, still angry and still having my say.

The Rebellion Festival is probably the greatest punk festival on Earth. Paranoid Visions have played it every year apart from the first and it’s always a great buzz and honour. Yes, there are some old codgers but there are hundreds of new and lesser-known bands.

If people are inspired by Paranoid Visions and me, that’s not a bad thing. Punk is bigger nowadays than it ever was. It’s as potent an expressive force as it’s always been.

The Wild Duck on Sycamore Street: ‘All we need is somewhere to play’

John Perry from The Only Ones gets up with Martin Stephenson. Is that Leo Kelly from Tír na nÓg? The Blackpitts are launching their LP Nevada Jacks? The Gakk play when? A man stands at a door off Sycamore Street by the Olympia greeting familiar faces, looking at the guest list, charging people in. It’s Barry Hartigan, maestro of the afternoon gig, the man behind the Alternative Sunday Social Club. “We started the shows in Toners on Baggot Street in 2015. We moved to The Wild Duck in 2019 and now we’re busier than ever.”

Hartigan hosts local punk bands and UK legends like TV Smith and JC Carroll. “Many of my generation watched bands in pubs on Sunday afternoons back in the 1980s. We want to do it again. It has become a hangout for punk fans and bands.”

Upcoming shows: Trouble Pilgrims on August 28th, The Dubtones on September 4th and The Trash Blues on September 25th