attend more punk gigs

The Lobotomies – pretty much epitomize banal, shitey dude-punk

Kaddish – Hardcore of some description. I’m not really into the genre but anything’s better than the first band. Anything. :/

Oi Polloi – Second time I’ve seen them, though not my favourite. Although the bands themselves were good, the crowd mainly comprised younger folk (um, people my age then) out their faces with drink. Which is understandable given it was a punk gig in a country with one of the biggest binge drinking problems in the world. Don’t get me wrong, I do take a drink occasionally but being around really drunk people who are violent and unpredictable scares me. Perhaps I’m just on a bit of a high horse from hanging out with cool straight edge kids. Hmmm, I sense an essay coming on…

Although I’ve been a loyal follower of a smattering of punk bands for several years, I only experienced my first punk gig last week. Being a painfully self-conscious and self-aware person in everyday life, I find it difficult to not analyze everything so it was incredibly freeing to just let go and get into the music. There’s something really wonderful about the breakdown of the performer/audience barrier. So I did a bit of shouting, dancing and banging into random folk. I wear the bruises with pride.