Hackfest #3

Three years in and Hackfest was beginning to become something of a minor institution in the punk rock calendar. Luckily for us the skittle alley out the back of The Belvoir hadn't been demolished yet, as the landlord was in the middle of battle for planning permission. On top of that, we'd only lost a couple of bands along the way, too. The brilliant Ragdolz had sadly split up a few weeks before the show, while those Welsh skate punk wrestlers (no, really) Cruel Prank had to bail from the bill as the wife of their guitarist wouldn't let him go off on manoeuvres so close to Christmas. But they were more than ably replaced by a right pair of crackers. 

The Line-Up

Vicarage

This local gang of teenaged crusty metallers started off the day with an incredibly noisy barrage of blistering sound, and dragged all the smokers and chatters out of the corridors for a look see at who was making all that racket. The early punters got a nice little treat with this lot – a cracking little band who we could be seeing a lot more of.

Space Tourettes

Our fine pals from down South served up a fabulous dish of poetic acid punk and stoner riffs, all held together with singer Simon's dark, etherial folk wisdom and unique singing voice. And any band that gets the whole place dancing this early on in such a big long bill of bands deserves all the credit they can get!

Igam Ogam

When we unfortunately lost Cruel Prank from the bill, we knew that we had to replace them with someone equally as messed up – so thank heavens our pal Luke from last year's openers The Woodsman tipped us off to this little lot. Imagine if someone had buried Primus in a Welsh forest for fifteen years, until they were dug up by space aliens. Yeah, and then double it. Words can't fully express the confused looks on the faces of the entering latecomers when this mob were playing. A classic Hackfest moment, to be sure!

Trigger McPoopshute

I can't believe that we'd gone this long without putting our brethren from Abertillery on the bill. Coming off the back of a brilliant year for them, and with their new drummer just getting up to speed, they gave us a brilliant bundle of party fun – and the busload of Valley dwellers that they brought with them helped add to the atmosphere, too! Always an absolute bloody pleasure to share a stage with! Inexplicably we can't find a video of their Hackfest performance anywhere – so if you see one, let us know! Here's a clip of them playing the same venue at George's 50th shindig instead.

Hell Death Fury

Why stick to one genre when you can play at least eleven? And usually in the same song! We love HDF and their skanky dubby punky metal tunes, because you genuinely don't know what's going to be coming up next! They filled the accidental but now traditional party band slot with utter aplomb!

Hacksaw

Yeah yeah yeah. Two old duffers, playing badly – as usual! But this year neither of us were ill, so we could fully enjoy the noise! Playing at your own show is always a bit weird, because you have to suddenly click out of door running and stage managing mode and get your showbiz head on. But it's never less than glorious at Hackfest, and always makes us remember what we actually do this whole weird larky for! Here's us playing the first new song that we've written in a good fourteen years!

Martyrials

If there's any justice in the world, Martyrials should be playing stadiums before the year's out. There were a few people who suggested that a beautifully high camp band playing techno glam punk songs perhaps wouldn't go down so well amongst some of the more senior punkers in our regular audience. But after a few confused faces early on, the place absolutely exploded for them, and had the whole place screaming for more by the end. This is exactly what Hackfest is about, and why we like to keep the bill so wonky!

Surfin' Turnips

And what better way to follow what our pal Nick called "A psychedelic synthesized glam-punk nightmare" than with some rural folk punk singalongs about pasties and cyder! It made absolute sense in our brains, and somehow we managed to pull it off! The Turnips are the ultimate West Country party band, and were the most fitting end that we could think of to what had pretty much proved to be our most successful, and unhinged, year yet!

So Hackfest #3 managed to pull in our biggest crowd yet, and went by ridiculously smoothly without so many of the unfortunate events on the run into to the show that had plagued our first two goes. Was it just plain luck, or were we getting good at this? Again, massive props to Marick and Josh, our regular trusty sound crew, who all the bands absolutely love working with, and to the peerless DJ Panter on the decks, who just keeps plugging out the goodies, year on year!

So, what would Hackfest #4 offer, we wondered...