14.10.18

The Great British Alternative Music Festival. Butlins, Skegness. 05.10.18. - 08.10.18.


Words: Steve White & AJ Phink. Photography: Steve White.




The Great British Alternative Music Festival. Three days and nights of live indie, punk, post punk with a smattering of mod and ska thrown in for good measure. A festival with a bit more comfort than most. No tents in muddy fields here. This is Butlins, Skegness. Comfortable chalets ranging from the basic containing just bedroom and bathroom the luxury with lounge, kitchen complete with complimentary tea, coffee, crisps and even a couple of small bottles of red and white wine,TVs, bathrooms with towels and complimentary toiletries. All chalets within a 10 minute walk of the venues and the venues all indoors. It’s adults only – good because it means there’s no kids wandering around with no interest in the music at all, not good because there are 14/15/16/17 year olds around who love music that’s not straight out of X-Factor and who would love the opportunity to see so many quality bands in such a short space of time. Almost 4000 people brought together by a mutual love of music from bands who refuse to conform to what the mainstream wants. Whilst punk has its various fashions – there’s plenty of extreme mohicans, died hair, leather jackets, and ripped T-shirt’s it’s attitude that joins people together here and because of this there is never any bother. People aren’t here to outdo each other. They’re here to meet with, drink with and listen to bands with like minded people.



As for the bands. Three stages. The Introducing Stage kicks off at 4pm each day and, in theory, introduces people to bands they haven’t heard of before. In actual fact a load of these bands are well known, have been going for years and have a dedicated following. This year saw Pete Bentham and The Dinner Ladies, Drongos For Europe, Witchdoktors, Desperate Measures – none of whom are ‘new’ kick out a range of hardcore punk, psycho garage punk, socially aware stripped back poppy punk and guitar drenched post punk. Desperate Measures formed in 1982! The Lengthmen, The Reletics, Delinquents, Blue Carpet Band and others reinforce the fact that punk/post punk/grungy rock n roll is not only not dead it’s alive and well and here to stay. Introducing Stage bands receive votes from the audience in the form of tokens and the winner from each day returns next year to open the main stage. No disrespect to the winners, they were all brilliant, but it’s a system that’s open to abuse and should be changed. Whatever, it’s great exposure for all the bands with many saying they’d booked more gigs on the back of this weekend and sold a load of merch.



Witchdoktors


Blue Carpet Band

Bus Station Loonies

Delinquents

Desperate Measures


Pete Bentham & The Dinner Ladies

The Relitics

Verbal Warning

The two main stages are a showcase of bands that reinforce your faith in music. Bands from ‘back then’ still have the attitude, aggression, passion and raw power that make you realise it’s still important to kick back against a lot of the attitudes many try to force upon us nowadays. Sham 69, UK Subs, The Rezillos, The Boomtown Rats, Eddie & The Hot Rods, The Blockheads, Spear of Destiny, The Professionals and New Model Army all played superb sets that didn’t rely on regurgitating old songs but included, in the majority of cases, songs released much more recently. Bad Manners injected a real party atmosphere and kept people dancing until the early hours. Newer bands No Thrills, Hands Off Gretel and, love them or loathe them, Hung Like Hanratty prove beyond doubt that there’s more to music than the chart fodder too many people buy into nowadays. There’s still anger, there’s still social commentary and, with Dirt Box Disco there’s also a lot of fun.

Anti-Nowhere League

Bad Manners

Blockheads

The Boomtown Rats

The Boomtown Rats

Dirt Box Disco

Ed Tudor Pole

Eddie & The Hot Rods

GBH

Hands Off Gretel

Hands Off Gretel

Hung Like Hanratty

New Model Army

New Model Army

No Thrills

The Rezillos

The Rezillos

Sham 69

Sham 69

Spear Of Destiny

The Professionals

The Professionals

UK Subs


Should you wish you could watch some of every band that plays. There are clashes but unless a venue is full, in which case it’s one in one out, you can wander freely between the two main stages.  It’s less than a two minute walk between them. We had every intention of doing just this but sometimes a band will hook you in so much you don’t want to leave. This year it was The Rezillos (so missed Flight Brigade), Spear Of Destiny (I missed The Lambrettas) and New Model Army (missed all but one song of Angelic Upstarts).

As well as plenty of bars selling reasonably priced drinks there’s slot machines, on site swimming pool, coffee bar, supermarket – you can take your own alcohol to the Introducing Stage, chip shop, restaurants, clothes stores, record stores and, of course, the beach where a walk can clear the morning hangover.

Well organised with almost 40 bands over the three days, decent accommodation, friendly, efficient staff and a price tag hovering around £120 if you choose the basic package there really is nothing to complain about.