LOKERSE FESTIVAL. the hey day

Well justice at last. The Flemish opening act The Kids were actually planned to play as the support act for the Sex Pistols back during their (cancelled) European tour in February '78 in Louvain (Alma venue) but history decided otherwise. Now, they opened the festival for the band that influenced them and how! Classics like Fascist Cops and the Sham 69 cover If The Kids Are United got the crowd really going, in order to reach a first boiling point of the festival with the brilliant, There Will Be No Next Time. All warmed up, it was time for Manchester's finest then: The Buzzcocks.

Sixteen short sharp songs played amazingly. Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle at their best. Try to behave with classics like I Don't Mind and You Say You Don't Love Me. Ever Fallen in Love was played with sheer brilliance. Boredom. B'dum - b'dum.? Forget it. At least I guess that that was what Steve was thinking when he wrecked the drum kit at the end of the set.

The predecessors then. The New York Dolls were great. David Johansen paraded on stage in his skimpy pink T Shirt. Classics like Babylon, Looking for a Kiss and Trash passed the revue and yes at age 58, Johansen still can take anyone on. Even the newer songs like Rainbow Store and Dance like a Monkey could charm the audience. And covers of Bo Diddley's Pills and Janis Joplin's Piece of my Heart finally won them over. And then of course. Jet Boy at the end. Jet Boys fly. And ya know he's gone. and so were David and Sylvain Sylvain and the rest of the band.

Then the tones of Vera Lynn's There Will Always Be An England, the band that everybody wanted to see, came up. Opener of the evening was a good version of Pretty Vacant. Even in his outrageous oversized camouflage outfit, Rotten still knows how to mesmerize his audience. When he asked the audience to sing "Allah be praised" most of us didn't know what to expect actually. Well Bagdad Was A Blast a.k.a Belsen Was A Gas actually.

With Anarchy In The UK and God Save The Queen, this was really a home match and the audience went in ecstasy. But also the versions of Liar, EMI and Problems were delivered remarkably well. The burnt out version of the Stooges No Fun was great, as well as a very strong version of the Monkees' I'm Not Your Stepping Stone. Musically the Pistols put down a very strong set. Jones, Matlock and Cook were playing really as during the heydays, as a real little fighting unit. Encores you ask? Silver Machine, dedicated to Hawkwind, the originators of rave according to Rotten, and then a brilliant cut up version of Jonathan Richman's Roadrunner.