During their 2024 European tour, English punk bands Hi-Fi Spitfires and Chaos 8 played one of their two Dutch dates at the Resistor venue in Leiden. Herman de Tollenaere was there!
Two bands from Sunderland and Durham, Northern England, Hi-Fi Spitfires and Chaos 8, toured together in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands this summer.
Hi-Fi Spitfires are the other band of now UK Subs (formerly Angelic Upstarts) guitarist Stephen Straughan, in which he is lead vocalist and guitarist. Stephen’s wife Beki Straughan is lead singer in Chaos 8.
As I went to the concert on 7 July, outside the Resistor I met the third band of the night: Mouser from Delft, the Netherlands. (Not to be confused with the band of the same name from Athens in the USA). They are Léon Brok: vocals and guitar, Bas Beijersbergen: guitar and backing vocals, Sander van Rhijn aka Sander Rednas: bass and backing vocals and Marcel Oord: drums.
Bas told me that in the early 1980s he had rehearsed once with my band Cheap ‘n’ Nasty. He had played later with bassist Andrea of Cheap ‘n’ Nasty and Miami Beach Girls and drummer Sacha of The Lou’s and Miami Beach Girls.
Mouser started a few years ago, with Bas and Léon. Sander joined later. Then, a drummer joined, but unfortunately after the first gig he died from heart failure. Then, Bas broke his neck and had to recover. And COVID came. So, Mouser stopped for a few years, After the pandemic, they restarted with new drummer Marcel. Soon, their first EP ‘¡No Pasarán!‘ will be released.
When Mouser played as first band on 7 July, their EP title track, the anti-fascist song ‘¡No Pasarán!‘ was the last one in their set. Some of their songs sounded a bit like Sham 69, some a bit like Buzzcocks (“both favourite bands” of Léon, he told me). The Leiden audience regularly applauded Mouser!
Above is their Leiden setlist, with two of their stickers. Below is their (also anti-nazi) song ‘Loop naar de Hel‘ (Go To Hell):
Then, Chaos 8 came on stage. Their first song, ‘Darkness and Dust‘, also some of their other tunes, were clearly longer than the Mouser songs. They broke the punk police rule of ‘No longer than three minutes’. I love the Ramones, but all rules should be broken sometimes, including punk police rules!
Here is a video of their song ‘4 Minutes‘, as they played it in Leiden:
Here is their song ‘Out Of Control‘, as they played it in Leiden:
Singer Beki’s hair was somewhat reminiscent of Debbie Harry, but her strong voice sounded a bit closer to Brody Dalle of The Distillers. She kept moving energetically across the stage: vaguely reminiscent of Siouxsie Sioux, though not with high kicks like in the Banshees song ‘Spellbound‘.
After each Chaos 8 song, the Leiden audience applauded. They asked for an encore, which the band played.
Then, the headline band, Hi-Fi Spitfires, came on stage.
As Stephen is the UK Subs guitarist, one might expect Hi-Fi Spitfires to sound like the Subs. That is only true in the sense that it is tightly played, melodious, mostly fast punk. It has its distinct individuality in the sense that while many Subs song sound relatively close to rhythm ‘n’ blues, which works well for them and some other punk bands, Hi-Fi Spitfires sound closer to the Buzzcocks and similar bands. Stephen’s voice of course differs from Charlie Harper’s, but sounds good in its own way.
The audience showed much appreciation, dancing and applauding! Stephen said from the stage that he appreciated that not only veteran punks, but also young people had come to the well-attended concert. Of course, a Hi-Fi Spitfires encore came.
Resistor has sleeping accomodation for visiting bands, so the two bands from England stayed there for the night. As Hi-Fi Spitfires and Chaos 8 had no gig on 8 July, they stayed at the Resistor one more day. They had time to see the historic inner city of Leiden. The main photo is of Hi-Fi Spitfires at the 11th century Leiden castle.
The two northern English bands certainly have good memories of their Leiden gig. And so have their audience in Resistor!
Stephen will play the 2024 Rebellion Festival in Blackpool: as a UK Sub, not as a Hi-Fi Spitfire. Chaos 8 will play there as well.
Main Photo Credit: HERMAN DE TOLLENAERE
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In 1978 Herman co-founded Dutch Rock Against Racism and was a founder of Pin punkzine. He’s vocals/saxophone for Cheap ‘n’ Nasty and in 2021 co-founded the Punk Scholars Network, Netherlands.
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