Feeding Of The 5000 - 24/11/07 - 25/11/07
Ok, picture special as promised from this weekends Feeding Of The 5000 gig at Shepperd's Bush Empire. Peroxide risked life and limb for some of these people, fine job I think. The door policy was a bit of a mess the first night it would seem. People confused as to what queue was what etc. Peroxide didn't get in til half 8 so caught Conflict mid set.
Colin Conflict looking suitably psychotic, Apparently he'd cut his finger.
Conflict - The Serenade Is Dead
Steve and band first night.
Something tapping you on the shoulder there Steve?
Nice to see Gizz still using the same guitar he had on in last nights Janus Stark post.
'Merchandise, it keeps us alive!' £15.00 your shirt £10.00 your poster. Ummm...
Second night. Better than the first Peroxide tells me.
Deviated Instinct.
Steve Lake of Zounds.
Zounds - This Land
To be honest, I'm More worried about Steve Lake's teeth than globalisation. You shouldn't drink that stuff man! It dissolves skrews n shit! If the Global director of Coke happens to be passing, I'd quite like £50,000 for product placement. Cheers!
Flux Of Pink Indians. The band responsible for my diet.
Before? While they were? It's Flux. 1970's.
The Epileptics - 1970's Were Made In Hong Kong
Second night. I'm like 'Did they still sound like Crass? No heavy metal solos or shit?' She's like, 'Yeah, sounded like Crass'
Crass - Rival Tribal, Rebel Revel
All a bit Spaghetti western this. Seems like a missed an OK weekend. I dunno. If you went drop us a comment. I'm interested.
posted by John Liedown at 6:59 PM
9 Comments:
"I was offered to do this gig and I was Ok I'm not really sure about it so I thought I don't wanna get up there and do the usual thing. I thought I'd really like to do a performance of 'Feeding Of The 5000' as it is on the record, without 'Asylum' coz I mean only Eve Libertine could do that. I don't want to touch that; that's a separate thing. I couldn't invite other members of Crass to do it, I don't think they would have done it anyway, coz the minute you get more than one ex member of Crass to perform people think Crass are reforming and that's definitely not the case. The other reason I wanted to to it was because I think it would just be a great thing to do. In a way it's me saying to the the members of Crass, 'look how great it was! weren't it fantastic?' I have been reading the lyrics and rehearsing them and all of the songs except I think 'Angels' are still relevant.
But because feeding is only about 30mins long if that, I'm gonna do 'Big A Little A' and 'Bloody Revolutions' complete with brass section as I want to recreate all the radioey bits. I'll do 'Shaved Women' as well, 'How Does It Feel' coz I think that's still relevant too and it's a bloody cracking song. I might round the whole thing off with a Schwarzenegger song, which is ‘The Way Things Are’. I'm doing it for 2 nights and its gone from me thinking I'll do just a little half hour slot in amongst all the other bands to snowballing to me thinking now I'm headlining for two nights at the Shepherds Bush Empire.
I have got proper musicians to do it, they've all been in different punk bands and stuff. So its gonna be a really respectful, smart, really well done, well worth going to see performance. I've got Tony Barber on lead guitar (not now!) I've got Gizz Butt who used to be in the Prodigy and English Dogs on guitar as well, I've got the drummer from the Boys who also plays for Die Toten Hosen and Bob Butler from Schwarzenegger he's a really nice geezer. And me, and then and I've got a women called Sadie who's gonna perform the women bit.
I went down there to look at the Empire and its like this old music hall and well I've been getting into the old music hall cockney songs. People like Marie Lloyd, Gus Elen and George Robey all performed at the Shepherds Bush Empire and I m so excited to be singing in the same place with my version of cockney hall music thing. I'm thinking of getting a little band together and playing some of the obscure but poignant music hall songs to do with the working class and that. But really at the moment all I'm really doing is eating, sleeping and shitting about this fucking gig in November.
It really is bizarre coz everyone is really up for it, really excited by it, and I'm like fucking hell!. I said what security you got and he said we use Show Sec and I said fuck they were the bunch of horrors that caused a lot of trouble at Brixton when I did the 'Gathering of the 5000' with Conflict. But they are totally different now. They are not allowed to get physical now and if people get onstage they are hauled off taken back outside and put back in the venue. It's not like taking you out the back and beating you up. So how times have changed.
All I can say to would be critics who say I've sold out and I'm doing it for money. Well I'm Not. It's been done for the right reasons, I cant explain what those reasons are it - just feels right. If it didn’t I wouldn’t fucking do it. The promoter also has a policy that some of the money has to go to worthy causes, so he was like what would you like your whack of it to go to? I said Id like it to go to the Lifeboats at the village I live in now. Apparently I've been slated for that as well. I should have donated it to a crisis centre or to polio victims. I mean fucking hell where do these people get off telling me what I can and cant do. The gig is turning into a big thing and it's scary. I know if I cock it up I will never be able to show my face outside my door again. It's really a big deal for me and I know if I cock it up in front of the ex members of Crass its gonna be terrible. its got to be right. So I'm really getting my professional head on now talking to all the other band members for the night making sure they are on the ball - and they are!
Some will I think Joy De Vivre, Phil Free and Pete Wright will go. I'm not sure about Penny coz he doesn't agree with the gig. He's given me permission to use his material but he said 'I don’t know why you're doing this Steve' but no-one else seems to mind out of Crass but for some reason he doesn't agree with it. I thought fair enough that’s alright as I don’t agree with some of the stuff he does either.
Punk77...The Empire gigs aren't far away now...!
Oh shuddup, you make me want to go to the toilet!
From www.punk77.co.uk
Hm, he comes off alright in that there piece, Steve...
Well, after much talk I ended up not going. Not enough money plus was working nightshift both those nights anyway, and I've seen 50,000gigs in my life already and...
But good news is that I can hear some samples as well as see some pictures here!
In addition, there's a bootleg film of the weekend over at www.punktorrents.com but my ratio there is less than 0.0001%...
Oh well. Shame I did not go in a way - wanted to see Conflict (who canceled last time they were biller ANYWHERE near London) and obviously Deviated Instinct, plus Steve Ig & Crass of course. Remembering how crap (sound qualitywise I mean) the 2xLP Gathering of the 5000 is I kep convincing myself that I really did not miss anything...
etc
ok i am rambling waaaayyyy off beat here, sorry!
would have loved to been at the gig,the tshirts and posters are a bit extreme price wise thou,just saw shaved women on you tube from the gig if you,ve not seen it,not bad..
winston.
ps..dont look like i,ll be doing the blog for some time.dont have a computer i can use at the mo...
Slobo,
Yeah, he does come over alright in the interview. He's a genuine guy I think. I've been just as interested in his stuff since Crass though. Flux were supposed to have been good.
Wish i'd gone as well as it goes. You always ramble Slobo!
Winston
Yeah it's the stuff like the t-shirts & posters when you start to go umm... no one's forcing you to buy them I know, but it's quite a mark up all the same. �15.00 for a shirt I could live with, most touring bands are around that, New Model Army in Bristol last night �13 a shirt. Most bands at TJ's a tenner. But �10 a poster?...
Shame you wont be doing the blog for a while. It's part of my nightly routine and i've been missing thoose downloads. Take it easy butt.
J
Talking posters, I got a signed Dead Moon full-colour poster in Berlin when they played and it set me back 1 EURO! Sadly my mate lost it somehow during the chaos after the gig. Still really upset about that actually. Ramble on!
It's all a matter of choice from Steve Ignorants decision to the punter that buys the tshirt, you take the money or pay the money, whatever.. as long as everyone had Fun In The Oven that's all that matters. Crass will always be important to me, but that was then, mind you just watched some clips on The Apostles myspace page, and part of me thinks perhapes I should have gone, but then I could have stopped someone who hadn't seen 'em from going, and surely thats the most important thing..to keep the spirit alive for the next generation.
i grew up heavily into crass. got hipped to them when i first got thrown into the HC world; right when "Sheep Farming" 45 came out & heard it on MRR radio. totally blown away!! i scrimped & squirrelled cash away over the next 2 years & got every piece of vinyl they were on & also got hipped to Conflict, Flux, Rudimentary Peni & Anti-Sect (amongst others) along the way. this stuff was my life before i got turned onto stuff from Japan & South America. real idealistic & openminded 113 year-old kid out in the MidWest USA sticks, totally isolated except for what college radio & xeroxed zines were bringing me. i alsways looked uo tp their lyrics & ideas & tried to implement those ideals, no matter how "hippy" they may have seemed cos they just made sense to a kid like me. as i grew up & interacted in the real world, i realised how hard it is to be idealistic & survive. not to mention, when i started hanging around at gigs in my area, i saw that the bit in the insert of the 1st Peni LP about how lame the interactions at gigs at the "Anarchy Centre" were was pretty universal.
cut almost 20 years later. im married, have a "real" job, own a home, but am still very actively involved in the true underground HC scene in a few bands at the moment(no names here. figure it out for yourself!!). i just found the Crass documentary that some Dutch TV station did recently. nostalgic as some of the early footage is AWESOME. shit, every time i still blast my trashed copies of 'feeding' or 'stations' (which is quite often anymore!!), the hair stands up on my neck. watching this TV special, it all clicked to me. Penny's in another world. he was lucky enough to create his own insular & autonomous reality where you can be romantic about "revolution" and live outside "the system", but that just was never a realistic option for me. Steve Ignorant really spoke to me,AGAIN, in his life of being a 'bloke-down-the-pub' whos still pissed off at the world, but hasent let his anger consume him to the point of self destruction. hes still pissed but doesnt know how to channel his anger or even express it anymore. 20 years on, theirs still an obvious rift between the ex-members of Crass, as noone else even bothered with this TV thing to express their look back on it all. this gig is something i wish i could have seen, but im not going to lose sleep over missing it as its just Steve with a backing band covering the "classics"; which is EXACTLY why i didnt go see the Startford Mercenaries when they toured through here over 10 years ago. as for the prices being asked for the merchandise? no one is being forced to actually buy the stuff, so leave it at that. besides, Crass was so idealistic to believe that all the cash they donated from their gig earnings would go to worthy causes, im sure 99.99% of it actually ended up in promoters pockets or personal bank accounts. they deserve to finally earn a little cash after sacrificing a good portion of their lives way back then...
Nuzz,
I would have liked to have gone. Sometimes life does get in the way of gigs though. I have'nt got a problem with Steve doing this at all. I think a lot of people who were involved with the early Anarcho scene would agree that what killed it the end was it wasn't any fun anymore. It got very judgemental and insular. I've always liked Conflict, then they started that slagging New Model Army business who never claimed to be part of the movement anyway.... it was all about breaking rules then the punk police set up their own. Conflict themselves used to come in for a fair battering. Still like Conflict though! I digress..
Peroxide was a bit pissed off about the merch (you like to show your colours at that age!)
She's like 'Not even any badges or patches. They could have had something cheaper there. How hard is it to get a couple of hundred badges made. They could have given them away!'
I think that's what she didn't get from it. Crass were so good at that. Giving away badges, patches, D.I.Y. non profit.... and she got another gig. An enjoyable gig. But just another gig. Which seams a shame. I would have probably have enjoyed it more.
She much rathered New Model Army on the Tuesday!
Wedge,
Thanks for the comment! Excellent piece of writing. Dont fancy doing a couple of posts do you? :)
I was also very young getting into Crass. I had an older cousin who was a punk and suggested I listen to Crass as I was a massive Sham 69and Cockney Rejects fan, and..
'the singer sounds just like Jimmey Pursey'
So, gave Feeding a spin, cockney accent, check. Lyrics what the fuck! Asylym scared me. I was brought up catholic. I loved all the symbols and the artwork and Steve sounded like the most pissed off person in the world. Hooked!
I've posted comments on a few blogs that have given Steve a hard time for this gig. Which I dont think he deserves in any way. If he does happen to take it on the road and play Newport or Bristol i'll go. But then I would have gone to see the Stratford Mercenaries as well!
I think it's telling in that doc where Steve gets well wound up about people making money from Crass merchandise. As Crass never did merchandise someone was always gonna fill the void... it needs looking at. Some of the bootleg stuff i've seen is piss poor. Symbols upside down back to front. But you still see kids wearing the shit, and paying for it.
Penny got Dial House. What did Steve get? So yeah I agree Steve is due an earner. I'm sure he didn't make a fuck of a lot out of 2 gigs either. Which is why I expect this may be coming to a town near you soon.
Post a Comment
<< Home