Time for a review on The Wasted festival in Amsterdam the weekend before last. For those of you who don't know the details, the event is organised by the same promoters who do the big Wasted/Holidays in the sun festival in Blackpool/Morecambe. 50 bands were billed to play on two stages over two days, Saturday and Sunday. I was hopping out of skin with anticipation for this since I booked it a couple of months ago, The line-up though, was just okay, there was a lot of obmissions, such as The Exploited, G.B.H. and Anti nowhere league; and being into the whole UK82 stuff, this was a bit disappointing. On the other hand, UK Subs, Sham69, Beerzone, Discharge, The Restarts and M.D.C. were all playing, so that sort of made up for it. The only problem with the festival was that it was in Amsterdam! Four of us went over. Unless you've been in Amsterdam, it is hard to understand the potential and ease to get off your head, so the downside means it takes four people about five hours to get themselves together/organised just to leave the hostel. So I only got to the venue each evening at around 9pm, rather than the 1pm that I planned, therefore I saw 5 bands! On the Saturday I saw Anti-flag, Argy Bargy and Guns on the Roof. Anti-flag were okay, don't really know their stuff and they had a Green Day Blink 182 thing going on, which is fine, but I wanted something with a bit more welly. I stayed for a couple of songs before heading into Argy Bargy who were brilliant. The place was wedged and Argy, were in top form. I think the best thing over the two days was the crowd, the place was jammed and it was great to see so many chaos punx, every second person had a mohician or pinhead, (I really am into the old school thing). The other half of the crowd were honest to god beer swelling skinheads. The other thing that surprised me was how young the average age was. I got talking to a lot heads, and the punk scene seems to be thriving in Europe. Which brings me on to the recent thread on ''how do we think the scene is in Ireland at the moment''; well to be honest there is'nt one, not a punk one anyway. The whole DIY-crustie-metal-indie-punky type certainly is going great guns at the moment, put good old punk rock is hard find out there. There are only two bands propping the whole thing up at the moment and that is Runn'in Riot and Paranoid Visions.
Anyway, enough of the rant, and back to the review. As I was saying Argy Bargy were brilliant, great sangs, great leep around and plenty of beer spitting chant along punk rock. After that Guns on the Roof came on, but I went outside for a smoke, and got chatting and that was the end of Saturday. Day two: got to the venue just after 9pm to see Discharge, the four of us nearly got wedged in the door with trying to get to the stage in time before they came on. And what did the fuckers do...they canelled. Some mad story, (which got madder as the night went on), was that the drummers wife bit his finger off....ridicoulous. It's Amsterdam for gods sake, they were all sitting in a coffee shop around the corner. Went in to see Paranoid Visions, who were playing a blinder, you really got to hand it to Deko and the lads, and I don't know if it's the booze but the girl in P.V. is getting fitter every time I see her, (A big hello to you if you're reading this
A wildly off his head Phil from P.A.I.N. got up and done a few numbers with Deko, which was entertaining. Good all round proformance from them, and the crowd who did'nt seem to know any of their stuff got into it in the end. After P.V. were Klasse Kriminale, who I have to honest don't know much of their stuff, but were very good. Sat up in the balcony for most of this, (the weekend was taking it's toll). Then last up were Sham 69, which are always great. They played a lot of new stuff, which was'nt bad, good political lyrics, which was good to hear. The high-light of the set was when they lashed into the old favourites; When the kids are United, Borstel Boy, Going done to the pub. The place went nuts. After the Sham played a third encore, the festival came to an end. Overall it was a brilliant weekend, not a bad venue, and really enjoyed the few bands that I saw. Only downside was that it was in Amsterdam, way to many distractions!
Hopefully will make it to Blackpool in August, and in the meantime will look forward to finally seeing Discharge in the Voodoo.
Anyway, enough of the rant, and back to the review. As I was saying Argy Bargy were brilliant, great sangs, great leep around and plenty of beer spitting chant along punk rock. After that Guns on the Roof came on, but I went outside for a smoke, and got chatting and that was the end of Saturday. Day two: got to the venue just after 9pm to see Discharge, the four of us nearly got wedged in the door with trying to get to the stage in time before they came on. And what did the fuckers do...they canelled. Some mad story, (which got madder as the night went on), was that the drummers wife bit his finger off....ridicoulous. It's Amsterdam for gods sake, they were all sitting in a coffee shop around the corner. Went in to see Paranoid Visions, who were playing a blinder, you really got to hand it to Deko and the lads, and I don't know if it's the booze but the girl in P.V. is getting fitter every time I see her, (A big hello to you if you're reading this
A wildly off his head Phil from P.A.I.N. got up and done a few numbers with Deko, which was entertaining. Good all round proformance from them, and the crowd who did'nt seem to know any of their stuff got into it in the end. After P.V. were Klasse Kriminale, who I have to honest don't know much of their stuff, but were very good. Sat up in the balcony for most of this, (the weekend was taking it's toll). Then last up were Sham 69, which are always great. They played a lot of new stuff, which was'nt bad, good political lyrics, which was good to hear. The high-light of the set was when they lashed into the old favourites; When the kids are United, Borstel Boy, Going done to the pub. The place went nuts. After the Sham played a third encore, the festival came to an end. Overall it was a brilliant weekend, not a bad venue, and really enjoyed the few bands that I saw. Only downside was that it was in Amsterdam, way to many distractions!Hopefully will make it to Blackpool in August, and in the meantime will look forward to finally seeing Discharge in the Voodoo.
