Speaking of Blood & Honour, the Wasted Festival next weekend features a range of exciting local (Pisschrist) and overseas (Peter & The Test Tube Babies) punk bands.
It also features Bulldog Spirit, fronted by a bloke called Doug (who previously played with Forward Defence). Oddly enough, another bloke called ‘Doug’ sings for Blood Red Eagle (BRE) (the two seem to have taken the name, removed the river, and replaced it with a shirt). And while BRE may not have been invited onto the Wasted Festival stage, they are playing at the Ian Stuart Memorial Gig on September the 23rd.
This is not the first time BRE have ventured to Melbourne to play the ISD Memorial Gig either. In 2004, the band played with Death’s Head and the Bully Boys. One bonehead describes the Boys’ performance like this:
Next was the band that we had all been waiting to see and we weren’t disappointed!! The Bully Boys!! They played an awesome set, with tunes like Jigrun and Fire Up the Ovens. A few of the lads had gotten hold of some Jew[‘]s yarmulke and took a light to it and handed it to Scott while he was singing Six Million More! Seeing that burn to the tune of that song was brilliant. What a showman!
In 2003, BRE played with Bail Up!, Death’s Head, Fortress and Ravenous. Sharing the stage with Bulldog Spirit will be over 25 other punk bands… who really mean it, maaan.
- Blood Red Eagle :
…There is not too much of a scene anymore. We play gigs here and there but there is no real crowd. Down in Melbourne there is a bit of a following. A lot of the Blood and Honour guys down there. They enjoy our stuff and we like to play to the lads down there when we get the chance to. But the good thing is over here people don’t take themselves as seriously. Like it’s still very serious stuff but we can all kinda mix together most of the time. It’s a pretty good thing to be a part of but we really need some more faces and bands…
Bulldog Spirit :
…[In 2002] we played this punk’s picnic in a park in some shithole junkie suburb of Melbourne called Footscray (where Romper Stomper was filmed). Our set got cut short after three or four songs due to brawling. The girlfriend of the bloke that put it on freaked out and made us stop. I don’t know what the story was there, but the Melbourne scene is very divided… more like tribal. There’s SHARP skins and Redskins and Blood and Honour skins and chaos punks and crusty punks and fruity new school hardcore kids… They don’t seem to play together too well.
Time will tell.
