Live Review: Bob Vylan - Rock City, Nottingham 20/11/2023
A pensive punk outcry from a duo at the very top of their game.
It was a raucous night of punk rock in the city of Nottingham. With a Winter chill in the outside air and feelings not yet decompressed from the mundane, you could feel the tension starting to mount the closer we fell into the evening. Punks of all shapes and sizes - old and new - eagerly awaited a night to remember.
Support was made up of eagerly eclectic femme-fronted punks Panic Shack with their hideously addictive anthems and power moves and Kid Brookie, with his enigmatic rap work. A studios two-fold plan for a hybrid night of grime, punk and rock; Bob Vylan was the fitting headliner piece.
The ascent that Bob Vylan have undertook is a sheer feat defying the odds. From making a heady career in punk rock with not even a live guitar on stage to scoring a top 20 album on their own independent label, the duo of Bob Vylan are the everlasting serum to the upended DIY punk ethics. While the duo may not have any assistance in terms of guitar, they more than make up for it in charisma and charm alone, with Bob very much a character you'd want at your hypothetical dinner party. His captivating stage presence charming both the crowd and willing on Bobby - an equal powerhouse on the drum stool - is so fun to watch.
The duo - comprised of Bobby and Bob - are proud to present a show that is half music and half soapbox dialogue; the latter enforced by the vigorous rantings towards the lunacy of the World we live in. True to Bob Vylan's less-so delicate nature, it was a punk show in every sense of the word - an outcry to the misrepresentation from our leading Government, a chorus of boos in response to the policing in our country, an emotional outlet of fire towards to the mass Palestine genocide and a certain local bands' cowardice to the whole affair. At the face of it, it was a gig that made you feel very much alive bolstered by an equally stirring performance in a shared room full of like-minded anomalies. They say punk is dead. But if Bob Vylan is anything to go by the current climate of our UK punk, then I can safely assume it's not.
Clocking in at 85 minutes, Vylan ran through a heady setlist of old and new, kicking with brash I Heard You Want Your Country Back from 2021's breakout We Live Here. Tone already set, Bob blitzed through Pulled Pork to He Sold Guns before ringing out He's A Man; a new single taken off their highly anticipated album, Humble As The Sun expected in April next year. This was followed by Dream Big, an enigmatic anthem that is massive in a live setting. His 2022 follow-up album of The Price of Life wasn't ignored either with GDP making the security work overtime for all the crowd-surfers that were wading in. His venture with former-Slaves-now-Soft Play artist Laurie Vincent on The Delicate Nature was also thrown in on the setlist, the pit very much swamped in a cathartic pool of energy and sweat. This was not before Bob, however, let it be known that it was actually himself that came up with the new name for the fellow duo compadres. Unreleased tune Hunger Games was received with rapturous excitement before body-slam blinder Wicked & Bad finally blew the roof off.
Words by Alex Curle
Photography by Lilly Ferrari
