20/12/2014 Old school punk bands in Highbury

This is a venue that has only recently come to my attention - The Gunners pub in Highbury. As you may guess from the name, this is a 'football pub' and normally somewhere I would avoid like the plague - regardless of whatever team it might be associated with. However, it has come to my notice that they sometimes have punk bands playing, and as I had played on the same bill with one of tonight's bands earlier in the year I thought it was worth checking the place out - it was only a fiver on the door to see four bands after all. Actually; I was a bit spoiled for choice for punk in the Finsbury Park area tonight as the ex-Boys bassist and current frontman for Duncan Reid & The Big Heads was doing a short acoustic spot at the Silver Bullet bar by the station at the same time.

Unfortunately I didn't make it to the pub early enough to catch The Vulz, and The Stereotypes were playing when I arrived. They were rather good in a catchy 1977 UK punk style. Apparently they were going in 1979 so have a proper old school punk past. Dunno how many original members in the current lineup - some look too young... It took a while to get a drink and they finished their set of originals with a cover of the Ramones classic 'Blitzkrieg Bop' before I could get my camera out.

Checking the pub out between bands The Gunners is actually quite a nice little venue if you ignore the 'football shrine' side of it - it's got a proper stage and P.A. Also, there was a selection of real ales as well as a huge array of the usual fizzy water lagers, etc on tap. Rather to my surprise the ales were reasonably priced too. This was starting to look like a good value for money night out - and so it proved.

The next band was Rage DC. Fronted by a very angry man who kicked his Les Paul guitar off the stage (literally) when it wouldn't work at the beginning of the band's set! He bore a most unfortunate resemblance to Nigel Farage in profile when he smiled - but I wouldn't dare say that to his face! The band however, were very good. There was a strong Clash influence, but I was told by the other guitarist later that this wasn't deliberate. They played with fire and passion, but precision too - the best band of the night.

Last band of the night was The Xtraverts - another old school original punk throwback - dating from 1976 apparently.

Not the best band of the night as far as their performance goes, but probably the best written songs.

Like all the bands tonight they were well received by the crowd of mainly middle aged punk rockers - there is quite a good turnout for this night of old school punk bands - especially considering it's nearly Christmas and lots of people are either skint, staying in, or both.

There's a good crowd, but it's not uncomfortably packed. Nice atmosphere.

The Xtraverts are quite entertaining, and seem comfortable doing their own thing while being happy in their status as aging and obscure punk rockers.

One thing I notice all the bands have in common tonight is that they are proper old late 70's style UK punk bands before it all became a Mohicanned studded leather jacket cliche bound up in rules about what was or wasn't 'punk' and all the groups were just bad heavy metal bands. This is far more more what punk means to me. It's turned out quite an enjoyable night, and I certainly wouldn't mind visiting this venue again in spite of it's football associations.