“Brooksy, I got a feeling we’re not in south Wales anymore.”

It’s been blowing a gale outside for what feels like forever now, so much so I half expect to not have to leave the house to travel across the River Severn tonight and instead arrive Dorothy style for my last gig of the year.

Nothing was going to stop me being here tonight though, not the wind and most certainly not the Bristol traffic and the persistent road closures around the venue situated on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Bristol city centre.

Unfortunately, it does mean I get to the venue just as Cheltenham punkers 4ft Fingers are delivering their final chords of the evening to rapturous applause, as those in early doors (and it was early doors at 6pm) appear to have enjoyed every minute of their set.

It was exactly a year ago to the night that I was in Aberdare watching Dirtbox Disco deliver a fabulous headline set to an appreciative yet drenched (I’m starting to see a pattern here) audience, tonight the crowd are thankfully mostly dry on the outside seemingly full of early festive cheer (and beer) ready for a good singalong and dance. Even Santa has made it down to the barrier, much to Spunk Volcano’s amusement.

“I remember 1987 you fucker, I had minus presents!” teases Spunk. “You were a very bad boy” replies Santa. “I’m always a very bad boy” cackles Spunk, as opener ‘Punk Rock N Porno’ sets the smut bar at just the right level for the band’s fast and furious set.

Mixing (g)oldies like ‘Tragic Roundabout’, ‘Buring’ and ‘I Dont Wanna Go Out With You’ with the anthemic ‘Unstoppable’ (“Cock Sparrer offered me a lot of money for this song, I turned them down” jokes Spunk) and the total filth of newie ‘Second Hand Sex Toys’, Spunk, Maff, Danny and Chris ensure that everyone goes home tonight with at least one of their choruses stuck in your head, with “you’re a dirty dirty, dirty dirty, bastard” being my particular earworm of choice tonight.

For many though it’ll always be set closer ‘My Life Is Shit’, and a decade or so on from it first making it into the Dirtbox set it’s still as relevant (and insanely catchy) today as it’s always been.

It’s fantastic to watch Dirtbox Disco playing to such an appreciative and substantial audience outside of Rebellion weekend, and long may it continue.

Cock Sparrer are now some fifty two years into their career, and if recent album ‘Hand On Heart’ is anything to go by we’ve never had it so good in terms of Sparrer activity. Returning to Bristol for the second time post lockdown, the Marble Factory (whilst colder than an east end villain’s abattoir) is a near perfect venue for Cock Sparrer to entertain their west country troops. The sound in this place is always spot on due to the building’s old stone construction and the volume at which Mick Beaufoy’s police siren guitar intro to ‘Riot Squad’ blasts out the PA is enough to immediately stop any potential crimes happening around the Redcliffe area of Bristol tonight.  The crowd, of course, promptly goes nuts and for the next 75 minutes we all (and I do mean ALL) sing our hearts out to banger after banger from the Sparrer back catalogue.

Having seen Sparrer back in April of this year deliver a double shift of sets, firstly in the shape of new tracks and deep cuts and then follow that with a headline set of greatest hits, what we have tonight set list wise is a mash up of the two with the opening trio of ‘Riot Squad’, ‘Watch Your Back’ and ‘Working’ quickly followed by ‘With My Hand On My Heart’ and ‘Mind Your Own Business’ from the band’s latest LP. New cuts ‘Take It On The Chin’ (guitarist Daryl Smith jokingly reassuring us all that “Spunk Volcano got his £10 for helping us write this one”) and ‘Here We Stand’ also get included, as does the magnificent ‘One By One’ from 2017’s ‘Forever’, but it’s during ‘Because You’re Young’ and ‘Take ‘Em All’ that we really get to hear the Bristol faithful in full voice, something that seems to genuinely take frontman Colin McFaull aback, and the smile on his face as the crowd can clearly be heard over the band says it all really.

With no time for the rigmarole of an encore tonight the band thunder through ‘England Belongs To Me’ and ‘We’re Coming Back’ to conclude proceedings, closing things out as only Cock Sparrer can by promising they will be coming back …soon. Lovely jubbly!!!

Author: Johnny Hayward