The well-known Dutch punk band encouraged mass pogoing in Leiden city again!
On 18th October 2025, Hang Youth, maybe the best-known Dutch punk band, played in the Gebroeders de Nobel venue in Leiden.
They had also played there in 2023. Some things were similar to two years ago: a jam-packed hall, the audience mostly full of 20 year olds, pogoing wildly from the first song to the last! There were also differences from 2023: both singer Abel van Gijlswijk and guitarist Kaj Bos have had shorter haircuts.
In 2023, the punk girls and drummer boy of Maria Iskariot from Belgium were the support act. This time, it was Dutch rapper Zeldzame with his DJ Milky Way.
You can see another difference comparing the top photo from 2025 with the 2023 photo below here. In 2023, the backdrop of Hang Youth was made up of multiple banners, poking fun at flags, such as the USA and the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2025, there was an LED backdrop.
During Maria Iskariot’s last song in 2023, the audience invaded the stage.
This shows a difference in audience reaction. The audience liked Zeldzame, they applauded, but he did not set them on fire like Maria Iskariot had done. After all, it was a punk audience. Zeldzame showed he was good at rhyming and had a strong stage presence. He asked the audience to turn on their cellphones’ lights; many people did.
Zeldzame recently published this book.
Hang Youth had an extensive set list – while the symphonic rock band Yes had only three songs on an LP, and punk bands often play sets of 10-20 songs, Hang Youth played 45 songs in 90 minutes. Many of their songs are less than one minute long. All songs are in Dutch, and are about situations in politics and society from the band’s anarchist viewpoint.
Their third song in Leiden in 2025 was their opening song in Paradiso in Amsterdam in 2023, see video:
It is about the Shell multinational oil corporation. They knew already decades ago that they were major contributors to global warming, so they reacted by investing in pseudo-scientists, claiming that climate change was not a problem. The full song title is, translated ‘Shell is a great corporation (if I would believe their website)’.
As the audience moved like a stormy sea, there was crowdsurfing. Including by singer Abel, who also did a handstand on the stage.
Song #8 was ‘Defund de Staat‘. Staat literally means state in the sense of government, but in the lyrics, it is about a Dutch Nijmegen city mainstream rock band called De Staat. They got over a million euros in subsidies; and the government committee awarding them that money had the De Staat manager as their adviser. That million euros would have been spent better on hundreds of punk bands in the Netherlands getting a few hundred euros each, helping them to find rehearsal space, buying amps, replacing broken strings, etc., instead of on that one run-of-the-mill rock band.
Drummer Nout Kooij was the rhythm section together with bassist Ben Kraak.
We were also treated to songs from their 2024 album ‘Er Is Hoop‘, including the second song of the set ‘Malloot‘. Er Is Hoop in 1982 was a fundamentalist religious campaign. It said: The world is full of misery, there is only one hope: converting to Jesus. Also in 1982, a Dutch punk audiocassette label called itself Er Is Hoop Tapes, as a parody of the religious campaign, and also to express that there is hope in punk. The album title was on the Hang Youth drum kit.
Song #21 was ‘Tata Steel‘, about the cancer-causing blast furnace corporation: ”people are murdered in Velsen-Noord“:
The band had a new song about the KKR private equity company. This big multi-national corporation has acquired Superstruct Entertainment, an owner of music festivals, including Zwarte Cross in the Netherlands. As KKR also profits from war in the Middle East, many bands, including Hang Youth, that were booked to play the 2025 Zwarte Cross, decided to boycott that festival.
Abel warned from the Leiden stage that prominent US Trump supporter and opponent of voting rights for women, billionaire Peter Thiel, is a creep.
As the concert was shortly before the Dutch general election, Abel asked the audience who they would vote for? There came various answers: “What do I hear … JA21 [a far-right party]??!! Get your Hang Youth T-shirt out, that is bad marketing!”, to loud laughter.
The lights focused on our Punktuation photographer Gerie on the balcony. “There stands my mother” Abel said (he had met Gerie before at another Leiden show).
This video shows the last two songs of the 2025 show; ‘Alles Moet Beter‘ is about working-class people and about how they deserve better lives. The final song ‘Belastingdienst‘ is about the Dutch tax administration, which attacks vulnerable persons, while the rich dodge taxes.
The Gebroeders de Nobel hall emptied. People went home very satisfied.
Main Photo Credit / All Photos: GERIE HERMANS
Videos: PAUL DE REUS
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