Tunbridge Wells Forum 21 Dec 2024
Saturday nights in Tunbridge Wells can be a fun event at any time of year, but late in December, local punk rock heroes, The Anti-Nowhere League, hold their Christmas bash at The Forum and pack it out. This year’s event was sold out quite a while back and was full to the gills with fans, local friends and family of the band.
The League don’t just attract old punks to their shows. Although they started out as a punk band back in the early 80’s, they had some success but were pretty much finished by the late 80’s. However, when Metallica covered their song, ‘So What’ in 1991, which was the B-Side of The Anti-Nowhere League’s first chart bothering release, a cover of Ralph McTell’s ‘Streets of London’, the band decided to take advantage of the renewed interest in their band and reform – and they’ve been at it ever since, playing to rooms filled with a technicolour gathering of punks, rockers metal heads and bikers.
During their forty-odd years of existence, the League have had a fair few members passing through their ranks but singer, Nick “Animal” Culmer has been a constant throughout that time. On bass we now have Matt “Biff” Lucas and Tom Hunt has been the League’s guitarist since 2010. Standing in on drums tonight we see the return of Dave ‘Nato’ Hazlewood who was with the band for a decade until 2015 and has recently returned to cover a few shows.
Starting off with ‘They Want Us Dead’, the opening track from their 2024 album, Welcome To The Monkey House’, Frazer Horton’s driving guitar sets the tone for the evening, snappy well-written songs with great hooks and a pounding rhythm section.
‘Penny Drop Smile’ from 2011’s ‘Music For Dead Beats’ is another short, upbeat number that keeps the pace high. A few tracks from their latest album then followed in quick succession, the super speedy bass-driven ‘Stupid’ and the rocky ‘Half Life Blues’. The super-surfy ‘Dance of The Dead’ was a highlight of their set for me which seemed to be over all too quickly. I’ll definitely be back for more.
The Anti-Nowhere League kicked off with Pig Iron from the 1997 album ‘Scum’, setting the pace straight away. 2007’s ‘At The End of The Day’ was followed by the classic, Nowhere Man from 1982’s ‘We Are…The League. ‘I hate People’ followed shortly after, along with ‘Let’s Break the Law’ All proving that The League aren’t just about ‘So What’ but that was indeed one of the next tracks to be played and by this time the capacity crowd was indeed really starting to get into the swing of things. Of course ‘Streets of London’ made an appearance along with other classics ’We Will Not Remember You’, ‘God Bless Alcohol’ and of course a rousing version of ‘We Are… The League’.
After a quick breather, also known as waiting for the crowd to make enough noise to warrant an encore, Nick and the boys returned to the stage to blast through ‘Reck-a-Nowhere’, ‘Animal’ and the splendidly entertaining ‘Landlord Is a Wanker’. I left the, by now very sweaty venue, with a smile on my face wondering if that particular landlord was indeed a fan of The League, you never know?
I have been to a few of these ANWL Christmas do’s over the years, I believe my first was about 9 years ago, and they never fail to be a really great evening. Now that’s done, I can consider Christmas to be well and truly underway.
For more information about the bands and their up-and-coming gigs visit:
@antinowhereleague | www.antinowhereleague.com
@zombiemetgirl | www.zombiemetgirl.co.uk
