Published in NME, 12th June 1982
Anti-Nowhere League / Chron Gen / Chelsea / The Defects | Gig Review | Derby 1982 | WHAT HAVE we here? The ‘So What’ tour is ‘Anarchy In The UK’ revisited, the best thing to happen to punk since sliced bread eh? Talk about crass comparison! No, talk about blatant contrast instead and don’t waste your breath.
Five years ago Malcolm McClaren instigated the arrival of ‘danger’ and ‘threat’ at the King’s Hall: a daytime swimming pool drained and boarded over for the occasion. The city council, decided to attend the soundcheck, and all-knowing decided that The Sex Pistols were worse for our health than 20 Woodbines and the event was duly cancelled.
But 600 people remained outside, refusing to leave until their protest and demonstration was threatened with a cell for the night.
Five years on, the paperwork is handled by Straight Music for a substantial fee. The site has transferred to The Assembly Rooms: a complex bastion of officiousness complete with carpets, usherettes and ice cream stalls, and there’s no more than 600 people inside.
Anti-Nowhere League / Chron Gen / Chelsea / The Defects | Gig Review | Derby 1982
Punk rockers reclining on plush pampered seats, admiring new leathers, biker boots and cheap chat. They’re paying customers out to socialise and later, out to be entertained. Punk? The dress is still here but the attitudes, and that’s what counts, are five years older and five years blander.
The Defects are crashing out as we crash in rather shakily to the punky party. A small audience for a smaller band who look as if they’d rather be with someone else: in the bar. After watching the defectives’ sycophantic squeals for initiation to a punky who’s who, it’s almost a pleasure watching punk’s old retainer in action. Gene October marks the perfect contrast: he’s older and wiser . . . and he’s already missed out once.
The Chelsea boy twists and turns, performing new acrobatics on old ropes. He knows the ring, he’s wrestled before: tell them they need a friend, there’s a big bad world out there just waiting to stomp on them; show them you’re that friend, you really care for them (maaaan). I can’t remember if they did ‘Right to Work’ but they’ve done it every other time I’ve seen them . . . and nothing’s changed. They’re still as crass and pathetic as ever.
Chron Gen, the name dropped from countless lip-glossed mouths in interval talk-talk, empty the bars like stars at the flick of a dimmer. In almost total darkness the four Chronics cut dashing figureheads playing passionately with fire.
Chron Gen are stunning! They shape the hereditary punk chaos into a dynamic controlled surge, a cathartic searing influx of power that releases inhibitions and cures paralysis. A tonic for the troops, they pitch the watchers into a blinding dance craze.
Anti-Nowhere League / Chron Gen / Chelsea / The Defects | Gig Review | Derby 1982
Moulding the sartorial elegance of the Gen X that never was with a seething menace that SLF never perfected, the chronic generation finally succeeds in stamping a streak of sorely needed credence into the ritualistic ruin this evening was heading for. Chron Gen have to be seen . . but not within the same hall as the likes of The Anti Nowhere League.
Remember ‘Gobbing on Life’ or The Dickies? This inhuman League would make a great piss-take of all that punk has ever stood for. Instead, by virtue of a forcefully confessed sincerity, they wander beleaguered, regurgitating stale sordid ranting despair at the system which spawned this idiot offspring . . . because they’re serious, they’re sick . . . because they’re serious, they should be ignored. (Amrik Rai)
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