The Casualties - Lock Up stage

The Casualties strode onstage and established themselves against everything that was previously established by announcing themselves as “the enemy”, but there was a lighter side to their performance that was about having good times with old school punk rock. Starting off with tracks like ‘Fight for your life, Freddy’, and instantly getting the audience to join in, the band presented a classic punk-rock sound, but with brilliantly discordant melodies and equally disconcerting shouting.

Bashing out chords against Capitalism, ‘The System Failed Us Again’ prompted a unison of risen fists of anger. With increasing tempos reaching cacophonous climaxes mixed with Kalashnikov drums, The Casualties coerced the crown into a violent frenzy, encouraging them with some raspy, revolutionary rhetoric. They continued the pogo-punk feel with, what some may have deemed trite, but was perfectly done, a cover of the Ramones’ ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’, which naturally cooked-up the anarchic flames in the hearts of the mob. 

They weren’t totally about shallow anti-authority, for with tracks such as ‘Under Attack’ they showed a deeper understanding of how a government can oppress its own people, and how we can become victims of the system that we help to support – but they were clearly positive, with further chant inducing stabs at all forms of control, with ‘Tomorrow belongs to us’. They finished with a song that summed up what the band had established at the beginning of their show, with ‘Punk Rock Love’.

James Wright