Michielveedeebee said:
I saw UK Subs play 3 years ago in Harelbeke
they were pretty old though
and they've been irrelevant since 1979.
Punk as something vibrant, revolutionary, and different has been long since dead. Some of the old bands still tour and can still be entertaining. But there's nothing new being said.
There are few things sadder than going to an amateur punk gig now. Full of 45 year olds in their leather, denim and studs, still think that what they're saying has the power to shock (or, if they're disciples of Fear, die Toten Hosen or Peter & The Test Tube Babies, just singing about alcohol) and that somehow they're going to affect some major upheaval. It's tragic.
For a few, glorious years, the genre was something new, powerful and controversial. But as soon as it became a movement so strong that small, DIY self-contained scenes couldn't contain it, it became marketable. And once it could be marketed, it was under control. The punks were fighting amongst each other (DIYs and sellouts, left vs. right, different scenes) and no longer presenting a united front against the status quo.
Crass were smart enough to get out of being just 'punk' at the time, and when they wrote "Punk Is Dead", the genre was seemingly booming - but Punk's capacity to shock, offend and revolutionise was what had been killed. And once you took that away from it, it had little going for it because it is an inherently limited genre.
Kråkesølv ~ Kalde Føtter