Stiff Little Fingers, Alonzo & Fas 3 and Bitch Boys at Debaser Medis (Live Review)

Stiff Little Fingers, Alonzo & Fas 3 and Bitch Boys at Debaser Medis 

April 5 2013

(Pictures will come later)

You could almost touch the tension in front of the stage before Stiff entered. A positive loaded tension built up of expectation, a feeling of pure held back joyful energy. Some did some pogoing before any chord been played others like me chanted “Gotta Getaway”. The Stiff entered the stage, then all hell were breaking lose…

But first let´s back down a few hours, we take it from the start.


The Place

Debaser, Medis is from my point of view a real good place to see bands, both because it takes up to 800 or 900 people. It feels narrow, most people get a good view of the bands (I don´t know if people in wheelchairs agree on that) and the sound are often very good. The only negative I can say about it, is the bars have a tendency to get a bit too crowded and the service then get a bit slow.


The Crowd

It was sold out long time ago. The majority of the crowd was mostly old original punks in their 50ies. For us SLF was the band who was the big punk band (sorry Clash) just after Sex Pistols and before Oi! came along. Grey hair, baldness and hard earned beer bellies everywhere. And ad to that more girls (mostly fake blond ladies) than at a regular punk concert. A few mohawk punks and skinheads found their way to Debaser Medis last night. The heavy weighted punk veterans didn´t feared to die of heart attacks in the mosh pit. No one did die, but If someone did it hadn´t been a sad thing, it would have been pure happiness to meet you makers that way. SLF and Alonzo was more than pleased with the crowd response. In fact I think SLF was a bit shaken by it, at least did they told us so.

The Bands

Bitch Boys

Bitch Boys wasn´t the biggest or the most skilled band back in the seventies and eighties. Even if they learned to play it proper nowdays, this forum wasn`t theirs. They got good tunes, heavy sound and Frobbe is a witty front man. But they were the opening support act this night, which I don´t think did them any right. As I see it it became more of a limitation to them than an opportunity.

Alonzo and Fas 3

I said hi to Micke Alonzo before the concert, and to Steppan (the other original KSMB singer). It didn´t strike me then that Steppan would be on stage…Infact I didn´t recognize him as one of my teenage heroes.  But with him onstage it was a blast to see the other original KSMB singer do the “Polsk Schlager” and “Atomreggae” (aka Harrisburg). I went emotional for the first time last night, not the last. I admit there were a shitload of nostalgia hidden in my response to it but also IT IS godlike good tunes. During “Tänker på dig” (Thinking Of You) Micke and I think Steppan as well wen´t emotional, you could tell. Mickes voice stopped being loud and it looked like he was fighting his tears. I guess he was thinking of his dead Brother “Totte” (that was the drummer in their band Stockholm Negrer) which was one of the people they dedicated the song to.

From a source I gotten, the news last week that “Dadde” from Asta Kask was going to do the drumming, it pleased me a lot. Then I knew that Alonzo was in it for real. Dudde is a very fast and dynamic drummer. Onstage they also got it right by switching one of the two Telecasters to an Epiphone Les Paul with its Humbucker pick ups (like Rancid, Topper and other well sounding punk bands). The Fas 3 sound where good last night. It looked like the band played with a big bucket of confidence. Micke didn´t have to worry about if this was fair enough. From the Opening with the world class tune “602” to the end there was just hits. They´re delivering both their new Fas 3 songs “Dansa som en fjäril”, “Jag vill ha ett meningsfullt liv” as well as a Stockholms Negrer song “Det förlovade landet” (introduced as his old mans every day rants) to KSMB classics as “ABAB”, “Tidens tempo”, “Atomreaggae”,

After that I was ready to go home, I joked. No one laughed, but all agreed. Alonzo and Fas 3 proved themselves as a headline band, not just a support act. And from the Swedish punk folklore I remembered when Ebba Grön and Dag Vag as support acts to Elvis Costello took over the stage and blew everybody out of their minds, left poor Costello almost alone at the place- Because the crowd just got so pleased by the Swedish bands that no one cared about poor Costello. That was not going to happen last night. People ware there to see the Stiff Little Fingers for the first time in Stockholm in 30 years.

Stiff Little Fingers

I f there even was a shadow of a doubt, it wasn´t at any good at all. We didn´t got disappointed. From the opening number “At the Edge” to the last, 2^nd encore, “Alternative Ulster” it was a ball. Mosh pitting pogoing, sing a longs and just a hell of a time in front of the stage. The rather stable edition of SLF with two members from the classic line up, Jake Burns and Ali McMordie and the other two from the 90ies. The 2^nd guitarists, Ian McCallum, have been in the band since the early nineties. It is tight and focused not least with the drummer, Steve Grantley that ad some extra energy to it. The sound was good, a bit too much treble I think. On the other hand, that was always the Stiff sound. ”Suspect Device”, “Fly the Flag”, “Tin Soldiers”, “Alternative Ulster”, “At the Edge” and “Nobody´s Hero” is a part of the Punk history that never can be taken away from them, Stiffs. We got them, as well as “Roots Radicals Rockers and Reggae”, “Barbed Wire Love” and “Strummerville” thrown at us as it was fresh meat thrown at a lion pit. As well as a peculiar new yet unpublished song about the new law in the USA that gives the cops right to stop you just because of your looks (just like the Stockholm police got criticism for doing) sounded like the nicked it from Strebers or Dia Psalma or something, peculiar anyway. The new songs were as always a bit harder to take to your heart than the older classics, otherwise this was a hit parade. Even more resent songs like “Strummerville” were crowd pleasers. In the end, the tunes from the two first studio albums were the ones that blew me to, wherever I went.

Singer Jake Burns went on in between the songs to tell why he wrote them, and you could tell he wasn´t in it for the fame. He was the real thing then and I think still is. The looks in his eyes while playing the Rule Britania passage in “Fly The Flag” was indescribable, Just that look was worth all the money to get in. I believed for a moment he wasn´t a punk rocker entertaining us on stage, it was far beyond that.  I believe we could get a glimpse on what was going on in his mind. You could easily write a book about it like it was a Vermeer painting or something.

Then it was time to get real emotional, at least in my case, for the second time that night, during the encores and especially during “Tin Soldiers”.
I can´t help thinking of my father that fled a hard labor life in the woods, to become a soldier at the age 16.

As a second encore they finished with "Alternative Ulster" with, by then, mandatory sing a longs. What a fucking night it was!

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After
Afterwards I changed a few words with the company I came here with but there wasn´t much to say, word didn´t cover it, just silly smiles all over our faces especially a certain Topper singer I think had the biggest smile on the whole Södermalm that night. Continue drinking beer and trying to have a good time was pointless. The Stiffs and Alonzos music had sent me to a place where just pure joy and happiness existed. The process to get a new beer and pretend that the world was the same without their performances was bound to fail, so I went home, and so did many others.

Worth the money?
Alonzo and Fas 3 was already fulfilling the fee of ??? Skr (I don´t remembered what I paid). When SLF entered the stage it was like being payed.
Jake Burnes told us about a depression he just gotten rid off, my way of not get into one is to go to concerts like this, this is soul food for your soul, hanx mates!