It’s back! Here’s Punktuation’s five favourite performances of the second day on the London leg..
Yep, the inaugural 2023 Handfests (Leeds and London) were such successes that the festival has returned this year, with plenty to satisfy any fan of (mostly) British ska/punk/hardcore.
Haest can’t have been looking forward to a 2pm start, but the Hastings quartet soon prove a treat for the early birds. Arguably the most hardcore band on the bill, they also mix in elements of doom and stoner rock, and serve it all up with no little sense of humour. Let’s face it, a song entitled ‘You Look Like How Ketchup Smells’ was never going to be a soul-searching epic on what it is to be human. Check out recent EP ‘Sight Unseen’ and keep a close eye on these guys.
Speaking of a sense of humour, Welsh trio Pizzatramp frequently have us in stitches. “My self care is DMT, magic mushrooms and 18 pints of IPA!” So declares their guitarist, before they thrash their way through yet another burst of warp-speed punk rock. There’s no onstage vomiting today, which apparently is unusual for them, but they do find time to take the piss out of all manner of famous people/bands (including Random Hand themselves), and keep us constantly guessing what they’ll play next and – moreover – what they’ll say next. Unforgettable!
Vanilla Pod’s ‘Surrounded By Idiots’ album has just turned 20, and although it may have emerged in more innocent times, songs this good never grow old – and sound great when played with the energy of a band half these veterans’ ages. Seriously, it could have gone toe-to-toe with the best efforts of any of the Epitaph/Fat Wreck bands that were popular at the time, but Vanilla Pod’s failure to be American probably counted against them. Anyway, they play the album in full tonight, they sound absolutely huge, and we sing along until our throats are sore. If indeed this is the last gig they’ll ever play, they’ve signed off in fine style.
In Evil Hour were once rated as “a weak AFI”, apparently, and were just thrilled for the AFI comparison. In any case, the last laugh is theirs, because the Darlington quartet have evolved into a rocket-powered melodic hardcore machine, and tonight they rip through the likes of ‘Predators’ and ‘Ascension’ with the vigour and gusto of, erm, AFI at their best and most direct. Ideally, there’d be a seething pit down the front by now, but the raucous applause is proof enough that we’re all fully on board with what these folks are doing. One of modern British punk rock’s treasures, for sure.
Well, we couldn’t NOT mention the band who came up with this whole idea in the first place, could we? Robin and co don’t waste a minute of their hour-long set, with old ‘Hand anthems like ‘Play Some Ska’ and ‘Bones’ (still one of the finest ‘carpe diem’ songs we’ve ever heard, by the way) whipping the crowd into a gloriously messy, bouncing, slam-dancing mess. Ska-punk is too often dismissed (mostly by idiots, admittedly) as a throwaway party soundtrack, but Random Hand continue to prove that in the right hands, it can still be the musical equivalent of a sawn-off shotgun. Everyone present seems to genuinely love this band, and tonight, they remind us all exactly why. Essential.
Dare we anticipate a future Handfest in 2025? Well, with bands of this quality and the headliners on such fine form, it would seem a waste not to take advantage. Fingers crossed!
Main Photo Credit / All Photos: ALEX GOOSE
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I spend my days teaching English to foreign students, and my evenings attending as many gigs as possible. Raised mainly on a diet of 90s third-wave punk, my tastes have grown to include just about anything from trad ska to thrash metal. The Ramones are my musical gods.
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