Wednesday 17th October 2007 @ Academy 2, Bristol
With Support From: Desperate Cycle, The King Blues

Tonight was bound to be a special gig as it was the last ever show the ska/punk/hardcore geniues Capdown would play in Bristol. This combined with strong support from The King Blues who’ve recently gained a substantial fanbase in Bristol (no surprise, they’re awesome), it is no wonder that the gig was sold out before the doors opened.

Dead on 7.45 Desperate Cycle, a Milton Keynes based punk/rock/hardcore band began their lively set, including some impressive showmanship from all five members who rocked the stage. They raced through their Myspace favourites then a few newer songs and were clearly enjoying themselves. The majority of the audience watched and enjoyed the entire set but sadly there wasn’t a great deal of crowd cooperation and it was clear that the crowd tonight were just here for Capdown and The King Blues.

Next on were The King Blues themselves who’d been chatting to the audience and showing support when watching Desperate Cycle just minutes before. The small Academy 2 was now rammed to capacity and it was clear from a large number of King Blues tee-shirt-donning individuals that seeing The King Blues was equal to seeing Capdown.

The King Blues opened their set with a long, dancy intro and then Blood On Our Hands was expertly executed which, as expected, made the atmosphere inside the small room electric and whipped the crowd into an impressive sized mosh/skank pit. The set mainly consisted of excellent favourites like Under The Fog, Come Fi Di Youth and Sound Of Revolt where the crowd sung every lyric back. They also included a few newer tracks like Save The World, Get The Girl and These Streets Are Ours which also got a massive crowd response.

The King Blues’ relentless gigging and popular residency in Camden Town is evident in their playing, with each song being cleanly and tightly played whilst maintaining their street rebel sound. The band finished by splitting the crowd into two with their superb crowd control and throughout Taking Over the two sides of the room competed by yelling “Taking Over” straight back to Itch (vocals). They finished what really was a perfect support set for the showmanship kings who we came to see, Capdown. The King Blues can be seen again on the 9th December at The Croft. Show your support, don’t miss it.

During the interval very few people left the room, scared of loosing their position for Capdown when they began which, luckily, was very soon. Before they began though, their intro was used to work the crowd into a frenzy with lights and booming drum and bass, which was certainly well received. The numbers who’d been dancing to The King Blues suddenly doubled and, from the huge surge forward, it was all too clear that majority wanted to see and say goodbye to Capdown upclose.

I last saw Capdown at the beginning of this year in exactly the same venue, it was sold out again and I came out thinking it was the best ska/punk show I’d seen in a long time. However tonight just topped all of that because something was different; perhaps it was the fact that it was the last show in Bristol, but it seemed like everybody in the room including the band were giving the show their all. The pit was the length and breadth of the Academy 2 with only a tiny number of people not dancing and most of those were staff! It was breathtaking.

Capdown informed us that on this tour they were playing the favourite songs of everybody in the band and their friends, which meant that all the old classics were bound to be played. From my perspective the best songs tonight had to be Cousin Cleotis, Surviving The Death Of A Genre, Headstrong (with nice, deep D&B), Truly Dead and Keeping Up Appearances. The Capdown crazy mob were launching every song straight back to the stage with considerable power and exercising their control, as The King Blues did, the crowd were split into two and showing true unity yelled as one “We want some action across the nation!” Awesome atmosphere. Although shortly afterwards it dissolved back into the huge skank pit which continued to rage all night. Impressive stuff.

To finish the set with a bang, the lads played an absolutely ELECTRIC run through of Ska Wars which is always a good tune, but tonight it threw the crowd into complete uproar with many crowd-surfers (banned!), the pit going crazy and I’m sure everybody in that sweaty, rammed room was dancing…even the bouncers!

It is a real shame to see the demise of protest bands like Capdown, which clearly mean so much too so many people and have produced such unique and political shows. Itch from The King Blues reminded us that without Capdown many bands would not exist including themselves and the UK ska scene would surely be a much less exciting place. However, Jake from Capdown also reminded us that in order to keep the scene strong we should continue to show the unity seen in the room tonight and offer as much support to bands like The King Blues as possible in order for new, exciting things to happen.

www.capdown.net

Franko
Photos: Hauke Moxon-Riedlin