Me First and the Gimme Gimmes / Billy No Mates / The Sainte Catherines

A highly anticipated night here for fans after the unfortunate cancellation of last year’s show. First up The Sainte Catherines, a Montreal band with hard riffs, hard vocals and a lot going for them. New to Fat Mike’s label, they force their brand of Propagandhi and Leatherface punk down your throat, but in a good way, like a nice beer bong.

Next up more label newcomers in the form of Billy No Mates, Snuff main man Duncan Redmond’s solo project. The live band on this occasion features members of One Car Pile Up, Leif Ericsson, The Fat Cats and Wakefield’s own Pylon. In fact it was good to hear a local lad, even though I was the only one shouting “Wakey!”. A couple of Snuff covers accompanied a range of good punk tracks, with drummer Duncan and co. providing the odd comical line.

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes came on wearing a matching set of red Hawaiian shirts (they looked like £3 Matalan winter bargain rail items). Along with the normal banter you can expect from any punk band, either aimed at each other or the swaying crowd, the Fat Wreck Chords guys played songs that your parents would know (but would undoubtedly say had ruined).



“This next one’s a cover” got a laugh every time, as all the songs are covers (except a little ditty of a tune which did not have a name or much structure to it, about hating them – the Americans). These fellas can get away with it though.

When you have members of NOFX, Swinging Utters and Lagwagon together through their love of 60’s and 70’s music, you get covers of Elton John (‘Rocketman’), John Denver and Billy Joel done in fantastic poppy punk style. My favourites are from the debut ‘Having a Ball’, but the other soon to be five albums span genres such as westerns, musicals, RnB and a live show at a Bar Mitzvah!

Oh yeah, some ‘lucky’ people got to take home the (sweaty) shirts. Erm, nice!

FUTURE GIGS