"They've got Burton Suits, Ha they think it's funny Turning rebellion Into Money"

"They've got Burton Suits, Ha they think it's funny, Turning rebellion Into Money"

or so Joe Strummer spat out when singing WHite Man In Hammersmith Palais many moons ago. Now we have an annual festival deep rooted in Joes Memory as it celebrates all things Punk Rock. It has morphed from Holidays In the Sun into Wasted into rebellion and seems to have found a kindred spirit in Blackpool. The impressive Winter Gardens has been its home for the past 4 years, in between ballroom dancing, political conferences and Darts games. It is an impressive arena and when the punks take over it transforms into 6 venues with an overall capacity of nearly 5,000.

For four days over the first weekend in August Blackpool - that Tatty Seaside Town - becomes home to Punk Rock. Blackpool seems to represent a different era, a time where tea was 20 pence and holidays were about bingo and rock. For this weekend it was a different rock - the PUNK ROCK. I used to trade tapes with the promoter, Darren Russell. He use to tape gigs in the Mermaid in Birmingham and I still have quite a few tapes from over 20 years ago. Lots af bands from that time have now reformed and pass through the Winter Gardens, bands like Resistance 77, The Last resort, GBH, Discharge and One Way System. This isn't just about bands though - the Winter Gardens becomes something akin to a punk Rock mall where you can buy everything from Studded Belts to Harrington Jackets with t-shirts galore in between. You can purchase your anti system statements in whatever way you wish. No cash? visa gladly accepted. CD's and records galore from all types of genre's. Hard Skin who featured on Saturday's line up put it best when noting that some dodgy bands had their releases on sale. Bands with sympathies to fascism. For every one of those there were double the number of anti-fascists so rebelloin say free speech is in operation but it did strike me as strange that Skrewdriver merchandise was freely available.

I spent 2 days at the festival this year and loved nearly every minute. I got to see songs by bands such as Slaughter and The Dogs, Penetration, TV Smith doing an adverts set, Vice Squad, Subhumans, The Blaggers, Paranoid Vision, Bad Religion, 7 seconds and Peter Murphy from Bauhaus. If you have any interest in punk rock from the 70's and 80's these will be familiar to you. The almost acoustic stage is a great forum for us old punks, where you have the old and the new singing stripped down versions of some great songs. Highlight had to be the aforementioned 7 Seconds, even though the sound was awful. That mixed in with the magnificent Goldblade who had 1500 people singing along to each and every song really is a sight to behold.

The introductory Burton Suits line came to me when watching the Godfathers play to a sparsely attended audience (considering Bad religion and Subhumans were playing on different stages at the same time explains that). They introduced a new song which was a homage to the Ramones "You will love this it's a F**king brilliant number" they warned us. I prefer to make my own mind up on this kind of thing and felt completely removed from the band. My Punk Rock is one of community, one where the band and audience are the same and this is where I feel Rebellion lets us down. Bands hang around the huge back stage area dringking the free beer they get but very little mixing and socialising is done. Having said that I will be back next year, hoping that fanzine sellers will be everywhere and look forward to meeting the same faces again