26/1/2008 Day 21 & The Blaggers @ Clockwork

Subject	Day 21 & The Blaggers @ Clockwork
PostedDate	1/26/2008
	I arrive at Clockwork fairly late after seeing another band at the Hope & Anchor - where I managed to enjoy some good beer at a reasonable price - things I don't find possible at Clockwork.  This venue on Pentonville Road isn't one of my favourites and apart from the bars being pretty poor and overpriced, the acoustics are terrible and it sounds like the bands are playing in a very large bathroom.  This looks like being an interesting night - the official debut of the new band Day 21 featuring former members of Sham 69 and Towers Of London. Actually, they played a short set at the Ruts film launch last night alongside a load of other bands, but this is officially their first proper gig. There are actually about seven bands on the bill at Clockwork tonight - of variable quality. I miss the first few bands and arrive while a rather poor indie band is playing. Next up are The Monroes, who look terrible but are actually rather good - sort of like Oasis playing Led Zeppelin songs. No really, it's better than it sounds. Next is the main event of the night - Day 21 featuring Jimmy Pursey and Matt Sargent from Sham 69 and The Rev and Snell ex-Towers Of London. This seems an unlikely pairing on paper - an old school 70's punk legend with a Slash type guitar hero - how is that going to work? Well it does work - because they have written some decent new songs. Jimmy Pursey is a good frontman, and apart from a few wrinkles hardly looks to have changed at all. Naturally, they belt out some old Sham 69 standards - but not as many as I expected. Well how convincing could a bloke who must be pushing 50 look singing 'If the kids are united'? To be honest, those old sham songs were pretty basic stuff and I think their new songs stand up better even though it's the first time I've heard them. The band play well, although The Rev has reined in somewhat his guitar hero act - which would probably otherwise have seemed a bit OTT for this band. He's obviously enjoying himself though, and it's good to see him and Snell back onstage playing rock 'n' roll where they belong. Finishing off the night's entertainment are The Blaggers - heading for infamy on the London club scene with another full on punk rock performance from their notorious frontman Ribsy. He isn't as outrageously offensive as at the bands recent Purple Turtle show where he probably managed to offend at least 90% of the audience at some point in the band's set, but it's still good fun.