Quietly entering stage left, in military gear and a hand-cranked air raid siren in tow, a lone figure steals his way along the five-foot-high platform, not yet acknowledged by the crowd. Suddenly, the penny drops causing a cheer to break forth. Cranking it, the siren wails, and immediately… you know. This is war. Dub War!
Blasting out the gate with Psychosystem – taken from their first mini album, 1994’s Dub Warning – the crowd quickly parts, the crater opening up exclusively for Dub War’s rough-play diehards and making it clear that the boys of Newport have come to rock.
Before this, however, the Graveyard Johnnys and The Kennedy Soundtrack help kindle onlookers’ smouldering embers – with a less finely-tuned musical production coming from the venue’s sound desk, but very much creating an impression. In the case of the former, with a relentless (if fairly one-dimensional) no-frills three-piece punk ethic; for the latter five-piece, a more versatile, riff-based rap-rock sound.
Glancing around the venue, you might think you’d been transported back in time. With the crowd moshing themselves to death and the absence of smartphones held aloft to pointlessly record every movement, it’s a refreshing experience to partake in. Most here are comfortably over 30, revisiting their early experiences of the bands and perhaps even hoping for a resurgence – especially for Dub War, whose album launch this show is.
Taking the opportunity to interact with the crowd, frontman Benji Webbe occasionally tells anecdotes of his life growing up, as well as berating the crowd for not moshing hard enough, or the band for their false starts. (“I know how it goes, I wrote the thing!” he says, drawing a few laughs.) A show of some of their finest work, nicely seasoned with material from new record Westgate Under Fire, the band return for an encore, playing their classic Million Dollar Love, whose slow, melodic guitar chug is impossible to misplace.
Only their 1995 single Enemy Maker is curiously absent, with one thinking Dub War are playing hard to get – and having sold out well in advance, maybe they could have used a bigger venue with a better sound set up. Overall, though, a great show.
Westgate Hotel, Newport, Fri 5 Aug
words OLIVER ROBERT MOORE-HOWELLS photos MATTHEW STRANGIS
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