GIG REVIEW: North East Calling 2022, Northumbria University, Newcastle, Saturday 24 September 2022
North East Calling is the name given to the ‘mini-Rebellion’ held in Newcastle on the last Saturday in September every year.
Formerly known as Durham Punk Festival, it’s now in its 10th year under the ‘new’ name and going from strength to strength.
One of the criticisms sometimes levelled at the all-dayer is that it’s the same old bands year-in, year-old, but that certainly couldn’t be said of this year’s.
For £30 (£25 if you bought early bird tickets), you got 11 bands old and new, five of which had never played NEC before.
One of them was opening act Slalom D, who had the unenviable task of opening the day’s proceedings, at a time when many folk were still meeting their mates in nearby pubs. It was their loss if they didn’t get inside into the venue in time, as the D smashed it.
Formed in 2018 in Sunderland, they overcame the tragic death of original singer Craig Macbeth after they’d released just one single by replacing him with Fiona Duncan, who has huge stage presence, despite having never been in a band before.
Their debut album Heavy Skies (reviewed here) was my album of the year in 2021, and they’re already writing songs for the follow-up, a couple of which got an airing here.
They sound more formidable than ever after the addition of keyboard player Goober as the fifth member, as he fills in the gaps in the splendid cacophony created by Fe, guitarist Gary Roberts, bassist Tony Lindstedt and drummer Iain Murray.
The new songs sound great, but it was the older, more familiar stuff which hits hardest; G.L.A.M., Final Girl, Pressure, and Chelsea Bonfire, which has never sounded angrier, and got them a huge cheer as it closed their set.
Many felt Slalom D should have been higher up the bill, and I think that’s a given in years to come as their star continues to rise.
Next up were a band who’ve played North East Calling before, back in 2017, and who I’ve never failed to have been impressed by: Guitar Gangsters.
Formed in London way back in 1988 by Pete Ley (guitar and lead vocals) and his brother Phil (bass and backing vocals), they play a hugely enjoyable brand of melodic pop-punk, which wins new fans wherever they play.
I’m amazed they aren’t better known, because they’re frankly bloody excellent, and the addition in recent years of second guitarist Ed Roolette has given them real oomph.
Their most recent album, this year’s Fortune Favours The Brave, was their 11th studio effort, and it’s packed full of their trademark catchy, riff-filled three-minute anthems.
They only had a half-hour set here, so just one track from it, Fifty Dangerous Things, made the setlist, which was crammed with classics like Turn The Tables, Hope & Glory and That’s When The Razor Cuts.
If you get the chance to see Guitar Gangsters live, please take it: I promise you won’t regret it.
Millie Manders and The Shut Up are another band who are newbies to NEC this year, but a big chunk of the audience already seemed to know them judging by the rapturous response they got from the rapidly-filling room.
They’re a four-piece from London/Norwich who’ve been playing small gigs and doing the rounds at festivals for a few years now, and released their excellent debut album Telling Truths, Breaking Ties (reviewed here) during lockdown in 2020.
Millie is a frontwoman par excellence, immediately engaging the crowd with her effervescent high energy performance and incredible vocals.
The band aren’t too shabby either: bassist Georgina must be the happiest woman who ever stepped onto a stage, as she never stops grinning as she’s laying down the groove with drummer Alessandro, while guitarist James handles everything from ska-punk licks to post-hardcore riffs with ease.
Again their set passes all too quickly, from opener Bacchus to the closing Bitter, via the likes of One That Got Away, Silent Screams and the outstanding Your Story, where Millie gets to show off the full range of her astonishing vocal prowess.
Millie Manders and the Shut Up are a band who are growing in stature all the time, and they’re hitting the road again soon on their own tour. Catch them if you can.
Yet another NEC first-timer is next, Resistance 77, who were again a new band to many, despite the fact they’ve been going since 1979! I think this might even be their first time in the toon, though I could be mistaken.
Hailing from Nottingham, they’ve been playing rousing streetpunk since before the term was even invented, and they’re another great live band.
Singer Hoddy is a real livewire, never in one place for too long, and leading his band in a set of singalong anthems stretching right back to their first album Thoroughbred Men.
Hence we get Rich And Hated, Broken Britain, Always Be A Punk, and the excellent closer True Punk & Oi, which sees him astride the barrier sharing his mic with the crowd. Great stuff, and I hope they come back to Newcastle soon.
From first-timers to more familiar faces; up next are perennial good-time glam-punk loons Dirt Box Disco, whose appearance makes it five out of the last six NECs since their first back in 2016.
The Midlanders are one of the major success stories of the DIY punk scene over the last decade, despite losing frontman Weab in 2019 as he decided to concentrate on his other band Kid Klumsy.
That left Dirt Box as a four-piece, with guitarist Spunk Volcano stepping up to sing the songs he writes, and you really can’t see the join. Every night is party night when Dirt Box are in town, and today’s no exception.
With just 40 minutes to impress, they’ve stripped out most of the clowning and smash their way through a greatest hits set, with just one song, Unstoppable, from their latest album, 2020’s TV Sex Show (reviewed here) making the cut.
Otherwise we get the tried and tested songs which the fans know every word of, and sing back at them with gusto: Burning, Tragic Roundabout, I Don’t Wanna Go Out With You, and, of course, their now-traditional closer My Life Is Shit.
They’ve got singalong anthems coming out of their ears, and every time I see them they don’t play for nearly long enough. They are Dirt Box, they are bastards and we love them. The good news is they’re back in the North East soon, at the Unionist Club in South Shields on 10 December.
From old faves to a band who’ve amazingly never played NEC before, and by most people’s reckoning haven’t been to these parts for a decade or so, The Outcasts.
From the same Northern Ireland punk scene that produced the likes of Stiff Little Fingers, The Undertones, Rudi and Protex, they’re another of those bands who probably should have been much bigger.
Formed in 1977, their initial run lasted until 1985, and that was it until they reconvened in 2011 to play Rebellion Festival in Blackpool. Today’s line-up still includes original members Greg Cowan (bass and vocals) and his brother Martin on guitar, with JP Moonie on drums.
Following the retirement in July of guitarist Petesy Burns, the most recent recruit is Buck Defect from another Belfast band, The Defects, on guitar, and he fitted in seamlessly.
With Greg on fine crowd-baiting form, they wheeled out some of their finest moments, including Self Conscious Over You, Justa Nother Teenage Rebel and You’re A Disease, and 2019’s Stay Young – their first single in 34 years! – didn’t sound at all out of place. I’ve waited a long time to see The Outcasts properly, and wasn’t at all disappointed.
From first-timers to a band who have played North East Calling more times than just about anyone else, Gimp Fist, from much closer to home – Bishop Auckland in County Durham.
Along with the Angelic Upstarts and Crashed Out, Gimp Fist are the band who’ve appeared most at this all-dayer, and there’s a good reason for that; the crowd loves them.
Jonny (guitar and vox), Chris (bass) and Mike (drums) are a tight unit, and although they have a back catalogue of singalong streetpunk that most bands would kill for, they’re constantly writing, recording and releasing fresh material – two new albums this year alone!
They kick off with oldie The Place Where I Belong, which seems appropriate given their relationship with the event, and plough through a set containing no less than five songs from their latest brace of albums.
They have the knack of slipping in new stuff so you hardly notice it, and when it’s surrounded by crowd-pleasers like Working Class, First In Line and (Marching) On & On, you see why they’re so popular.
Crowd surfing
Their cover of Perkele’s Heart Full Of Pride lifts things another notch, and gets the previously-unemployed security staff busy as the crowd-surfing quotient suddenly increases.
The now-familiar closing one-two of Top Dog and Here I Stand brings things to a heaving, sweating, moshing climax, and it’s another knockout set from a band who never fail to deliver.
It’ll take a heavyweight act to top that, and that’s exactly what we get in the form of anarcho-punk legends Subhumans, whose last NEC appearance was five years ago. Formed in Wiltshire back in 1980, they’ve split and reformed a couple of times over the years, but have been a going concern since 2004.
Impressively, today’s line-up is the same as it was almost 40 years ago: Dick Lucas on vocals, Bruce Treasure on guitar, Phil Bryant on bass and Trotsky on drums. They’re full-on from the off, with songs from their debut album The Day The Country Died greeted like the classics they are.
The likes of All Gone Dead, Killing, New Age and Mickey Mouse Is Dead went down a storm with the anarchos in the audience, and Subhumans plundered their back catalogue for a set full of bangers.
My highlights included Poison and Thought Is Free from their most recent album, Crisis Point (reviewed here), which I snap up after the gig for a bargain £10 from their merch stand.
We’re entering the business end of the day now, which means it’s time for another of the bill’s heavyweights, hardcore Brummies GBH. Formed in 1979, they’re legends of the UK82 scene, and are one of the few bands active today who’ve never split up.
The core line-up of singer Colin, guitarist Jock and bassist Ross has remained intact, with drummer Scott the new boy with ‘only’ the 28 years’ service under his belt.
GBH’s place in punk’s pantheon of greats is guaranteed, and they’re still producing fine albums, with their most recent, 2017’s Momentum, hailed as their best in years.
A smattering of its tracks make the set here, including Fifty What? and the title cut, but it’s the oldies which really set the crowd alight.
Motorhead cover
We get eight songs from debut album City Baby Attacked By Rats, but my personal highlight was the breakneck single No Survivors. There’s a surprise with the last song of the set, a spirited cover of Motorhead’s Bomber, and it goes down a storm.
Having hyped the crowd up it’s time to bring things down a touch with second headliners Ruts DC. They’ve played NEC here before, most recently in 2017, but tonight they’ve got a treat lined up for us: their debut album The Crack performed in full.
I had no idea this was happening, so was thrilled to be able to enjoy a reprise of the show I saw at the Riverside in Newcastle back in 2019 for its 40th anniversary.
It’s an album (reappraised here) of reggae-influenced punk which has stood the test of time better than most, kicking off with a stone-cold classic and probably The Ruts’ best-known song, Babylon’s Burning.
You don’t need me to go through it track by track, suffice to say the performance here was absolutely magnificent, with original members Segs and Ruffy laying down the backbeat for Leigh Heggarty to show what a talented guitarist he is.
A stunning seven-minute version of slow-burning masterpiece It Was Cold was the highlight for me, and we were treated to In A Rut as a ‘bonus track’ once The Crack was complete. Fucking magnificent, and I can’t wait for their new album, Counter Culture?, which is due out in November.
Time for the headliners, and for all that they’ve been very active in recent years, Skids are another band who’ve never played at North East Calling.
The last couple of times I’ve seen them I’ve been a little disappointed by the number of covers they’ve played; tonight they stick to their own songs, which makes it a question of what they’ll have to leave out of their hour-long set, rather than what they’ll play.
Frontman Richard Jobson, the only original member left, keeps the between-song chatter to a minimum, instead serving up a crowd-pleasing set which starts with Of One Skin and ends with – what else? – their biggest hit, Into The Valley.
In-between we get The Saints Are Coming, Working For The Yankee Dollar, Masquerade and the sublime Hurry On Boys, along with key album tracks Melancholy Soldiers and The Olympian, but my standout moment, as ever, is Out Of Town – surely one of the best B-sides ever?
Their hour-long set again passes far too quickly, ending by the Skids going off before coming back on to ‘encore’ with TV Stars, which Jobson professes to hate, calling it “one of the worst songs ever written”.
After such a great day of top-notch punk rock it’s a shame it’s the refrain of “Albert Tatlock” which is lodged in my brain as we head for the exit! Thanks Jobbo!
Joking aside, this is possibly the best North East Calling yet, with the newcomers freshening things up nicely, alongside the reassuring presence of the old favourites, who you know won’t let you down. This year has really set the bar high for 2023 to beat. Over to you JS Promotions!
