Mojo - The Music Magazine

The programme of this day-long, Shoreditch Park bash promises '4 Stages Of Future Rock N Roll' - and look out, Vic Godard & The Subway Sect are on! It's curious to see the punk legend on a main stage, in the blazing afternoon sunshine, surrounded by London's tattoo'd up, waxed-moustache, wish-we-were-in-Brooklyn fraternity. But his unique appeal is undimmed. New song Take Over is shambolically stirring, while there's a sweet sadness in the country-sauntering, Irvine Welsh-cowrite Blackpool, which comes complete with Reg Dixon organ sounds. Polish is the last thing we've come to expect from Godard, but as he sings on Out Of Our Zone, "he loved what he did... he wouldn't have had it any other way."

The sun continues to blaze as S.C.U.M. come on and create their pop-cognisant wall of Moogy noise. Frontman Thomas comes across like a young Nick Cave, and he skips the light fandango in commodious high-waisted pegs of deepest black that require regular hitching up. They'll all be doing it tomorrow.

Then, over on the rather grandly named New Bands Stage, The Pre New are making music for ramraiding the off-license to. The rogue successor state to lauded '90s bands Earl Brutus and World Of Twist, they dismantle the stage lights and mic stands and indulge in a feverish juxtaposition of ciphers (see the guitarists' shirts with Concorde and the British Rail logo stencilled on, two members in suits and ties and an estate agents' For Rent sign). They also get onlookers' blood up with splenetic numbers Teenage Taliban, World Of Twist's classic Sons Of The Stage and Earl Brutus' Navyhead, performed instrumental-style when the sound men get all uptight with them and turn the microphones off. Having cut his hand and drawn blood, though, be-suited front barbarian Jim Fry laughs to scorn.

Now, Peter Hook has said that Joy Division's punk edges were shaved off by Martin Hannett's digi-goth productions. And MOJO's pal Gordon recalls that whenever he saw them, there were always fights. So is Hooky's stompalong performance of JD's totemic Unknown Pleasures an attempt to restore the lost aggro? Could be. These are stadium rock versions of the songs, with lots of air pointing and foghorn bluster. The drummer has a ponytail, the second bassist is wearing camouflage shorts and for some reason game Madchester siren Rowetta comes on for Insight. Get over these anomalies and forget the Unknown Pleasures you know, however, and the songs still sound fantastic. So, not the Atrocity Exhibition of immediate mockers' quip, but the portentous words from Day Of The Lords - "Where will it end?" - strike too close to home for some onlookers, who head to the Rough Trade stage and the splenetic anarcho-punk of FLATS.

What buzz there is around this quartet of nurk-throwbacks - men in their early 20s influenced by Puncture and Subhumans - surrounds the parentage of perma-smoking singer Daniel Devine, the Death Disco DJ whose dad is Alan McGee. Their songs are like cans of White Ace shaken, then opened into your face: unpredictable, spurting, gratuitous, refreshing. Their debut five-track, eight-minute, self-titled EP is out next week on SSR/Loog; we look forward to a version of The Exploited's I Hate Cop Cars sometime in the near future.

Following Peter Hook's Unknown Pleasure onto the main stage are superband The Silver Machine. That's Innes and Bob from Primal Scream, Zak Starkey, Glen Matlock and Little Barrie, convening to play heads-down, no-nonsense covers of their fave garage rock'n'roll tracks, without apology. We get Them's I Can Only Give You Everything, The MC5's Sister Anne, Fire Of Love by The Gun Club and a medley of The Count V's Psychotic Reaction and Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love, delivered with full commitment to the boogie and much audience appreciation. There are sadly no Hawkwind covers, but there's always a next time.

And on the home straight, the ever-noble F__ked Up do their communal punk uplift thing, with extra-large frontman Pink Eyes getting in amongst his people in the crowd from the off. "F__ked Up does what people want," he assures. "Unless you want us to smell good." Hmm. After Bo Ningen's metal squall back at the New Bands Stage closes things down, the people drift away dazed but happy, many going on to aftershow parties where bands can be seen called Franco and The Long March. Note to young groovers - the 1930s are back in.

Ian Harrison / FLATS enjoyed by Danny Eccleston

F__ked Up photographed by By Mark Blower