Chokehold / Stampin’ Ground

Derby Vic

October 28 1998

Pretty sparse audience in attendance tonight, though that might have something to do with the fact that the headline band, The Wernt, er, wernt here. Yeah, I know the spelling is wrong, humour me ok! Anyway, something about drummers and babies I think, like the drummer had one. Or at least his significant other did.

And so, in these circumstances, Stampin' Ground take to the stage, and vocalist Adam does his best Pierre from Knuckledust impression, and decides to perform the entire gig from in front of the stage and on the dancefloor. Or the pubfloor in this case. It's a confrontation which can maybe go both ways. Tonight it scares people into not going down the front, not that anyone was going to anyway. But I can imagine that if the crowd are up for it, then it works well.

Tonight is only the second gig in support of the new album, An Expression of Repressed Violence, but already the band seem tight and into things, airing a sizeable portion of the album in their half hour. Emasculate particularly sounds great in a live setting where the bass comes through a bit more than it does on the album. The Death That You Deserve is dedicated to the scum that sell drugs, and a few oldies such as Undone, which is still one of my favourite SG songs, mainly I guess cos it sounds like them trying something a little different, and there's a nice little bass riff running through it, which I always like. Plus some others whose names I've temporarily forgotten finish proceedings. Time will tell if the new album does the business for the band, but they're safe in the knowledge that they've got the album, and they've got the live performance. All they've got to do now is get the support of the public.

Following SG were Chokehold, who I believe have former members of possibly bands like Discharge in their ranks. Well it would explain the protest and survive cover that was played towards the end of the set, and the other tracks, which judging by the reaction of the more seasoned punks around me would probably have appeared to have been "seminal punk classics". So I didn't know them then. Which was the same for the rest of the set, but in an old school punk way it was actually pretty good. I wouldn't mind hearing a bit more by them to be honest with you. And, even if they are punk, they still had more guitar solo's than the "metallic hardcore of SG. Didn't manage to eclipse SG, but, despite the non-appearance of The Wernt, it was a pretty good gig all told. And only 2 quid.