Two English punk icons ever since the 1970s, plus Cryssis from Germany, Deaf Devils from Spain, and Belgian bands Toxic Shock and BrainDead played at Breaking Barriers in Belgium. Herman de Tollenaere was there!
Saturday, 19 April saw the postponed 2024 Breaking Barriers festival in Leuven, Belgium. Like earlier editions of that festival, it was in the big hall of Het Depot. Formerly a cinema, still lined with cinema chairs in the back half; with space for pogoing in the front half, it had been sold out for weeks already. Punks of all generations filled the venue. The original intention had been to have Breaking Barriers last year; it was good to see it happening at last!
The schedule was:
16.15: BrainDead (30 minutes)
17.15: Cryssis (35 minutes)
18.20: Toxic Shock (30 minutes)
19.35: Deaf Devils (40 minutes)
20.45: U.K. Subs (60 minutes)
22.15: Steve Ignorant Band (70 minutes)
The three twenty-something BrainDead musicians from Turnhout, east of Antwerp, should not be confused with other bands called Braindead or BrainDead. They are guitarist and lead singer Lode Fransen, bass player and backing vocals Ben Van den Heuvel and drummer Sverre Goorden. When Lode and Ben wanted to found a band, they put up a “Drummer wanted” notice in a shop. For a year, no one reacted. Until Sverre saw it in 2021. They played a cover of ‘Fuck the USA‘ by the Exploited, aimed at Donald Trump.
Unfortunately, your Punktuation team arrived too late from the Netherlands in Leuven for the BrainDead set because of a transport misunderstanding. This is a video of BrainDead, playing live in 2023:
The next band Cryssis are from Düsseldorf. They play melodic punk with lyrics in English. Their drummer, punk veteran Vom Ritchie, also plays drums in Die Tote Hosen and The Boys. He started the band in 2009 with guitarist/singer Dick York. The other three members are Trip Tom and Thomas Schneider; and violinist Laura Knapp, who did not play in Leuven. Their albums are ‘Simple Men‘ (2011), ‘Kursaal Nights‘ (2013) and ‘1976‘ (2018). Dick started the set, saying this was their first time playing in Belgium.
Your Punktuation team at first sat in cinema chairs at the back of the hall. But the first Cryssis songs went down so well that our photographer rose; she said: “I am gonna dance”. So, we went to the front. They sounded a bit similar to The Boys. At the end, Dick asked if they would be welcome to play at the next Breaking Barriers festival:
The Antwerp band Toxic Shock was founded in 2011. They call their music crossover thrash metal hardcore. (They are not to be confused with other bands of that name, like this 1983-1986 London feminist punk duo.) They are a tight, competent band. Their singer Wally performed various acrobatic feats on the drum platform and the stage.
This is a video of Toxic Shock’s song ‘Quick To Forget‘:
Deaf Devils from Valencia in Spain was founded in 2020 by four young musicians. While the devil in the typical Christian tradition is not deaf, and male, the band is more similar to the 1935 Marlene Dietrich film The Devil Is a Woman (set in Spain).
The band say they are “led by a She-Devil” – their lead singer Lucyfer, who jumps about wildly on stage. The instrumentalists are guitar: Pipe Dead, Bass: Kuba Drums: Eric Von. Some of their songs are reminiscent of Amyl and the Sniffers.
While singers in other bands sometimes leave the stage to be amidst the audience, in the Deaf Devils, it’s not only Lucyfer who does that! The guitar and bass come down. Even their drum kit by the end of their set was in between the spectators.
As is often, the U.K. Subs started their set with ´Rockers‘:
Their new guitarist, Marc Carrey – also drummer Stefan’s bandmate in TV Smith & The Bored Teenagers – had a Deaf Devils T-shirt on. All band members, including bassist Alvin Gibbs, played really well. Charlie Harper praised the Deaf Devils, with a Discharge t-shirt on.
There was lots of pogoing and crowd surfing. As the Subs charged into ´Tomorrow´s Girls´, the eyes of a 1977 punk girl, and of a woman far younger, next to me in the front row, both lit up and their dancing became more frantic.
Their first song in their encore was ´CID´. The Subs head onwards to Glasgow, where they will play at the Scotland Calling 2025 festival on Saturday 26 April!
Then, the last band of tonight: the Steve Ignorant Band.
Their first song was ‘Do They Owe Us A Living‘, with the audience singing along. The band also had the crowd pumped up with ‘Big A Little A‘, and ‘Bloody Revolutions’; their reply in an anarchism versus Maoism dispute with Rotterdam band the Rondos.
Steve Ignorant had been tired at the 2022 Amsterdam Melkweg gig. But in Leuven, he and his voice were in great shape.
There was plenty of crowd surfing; while the front part of the hall was a billowing sea of pogo. Keyboard player Carol Hodge dedicated ‘Shaved Women‘ to all women. What a great singer she is. Here in the photo, she is with bassist Pete Rawlinson, and drummer Jay Bagnall.
The encore was Steve Ignorant singing ‘Do They Owe Us A Living‘. Without instruments; so: alone? No, everyone sang along, of course! A great festival, to be remembered for a long time. Including that after singing ‘Punk is Dead‘, Steve said, to much applause: “The punk in that song is dead. But our punk is alive!”
The next Breaking Barriers festival will be on Saturday, 29 November, with headliners Breton Celtic French punk band Les Ramoneurs de Menhirs, who had originally been booked to play with the U.K. Subs and Steve Ignorant at this postponed 2024 festival.
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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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