The Punk and Disorderly Festival, a three-day extravaganza featuring hardcore punk bands, mostly from the UK and Europe, takes place in Berlin every year. The Halo-8 DVD Punk and Disorderly, Vol. 1 chronicles the 2005 and 2006 fests with over five hours of highlights from dozens of bands. A few of the the main stage bands, like Anti-Nowhere League, Sham69, The Boys, and Eddie and the Hot Rods should be familiar to any self-respecting punk fan. And if you don’t recognize any of those names, the other bands may be waaaay too hardcore for you.
This two DVD set compiles professionally shot snippets from each band that performed at the '05 and '06 fests. Most bands get one featured song on the DVD, while some of the more popular bands, like Sham 69, have two songs each. This DVD doesn’t play favorites, representing main and second stage bands equally. Each DVD contains interviews with some of the bands.
Some background: An album called Punk and Disorderly released in 1982, sold well and was the impetus for the festival. The P & D fest formed officially in 2002 as an answer to other successful punk festivals across Europe and the UK like Holidays in the Sun. Next to the UK, Germany is a hotbed of European punk rock. Punk is to Germany as black metal is to Scandinavia, so Berlin was a logical home for the fest.
The first Punk and Disorderly disc carries a selection from the 2005 festival. Replete with stage invaders and glimpses of burly male fans in bright fanned mohawks (think of all the glue and egg whites used on those babies), this DVD has performances by a few legendary, but definitely underplayed, punk bands. There are two songs from The Boys ("First Time" and "Living in the City"). Anti-Nowhere League’s codpiece-wearing singer Animal growls “Nowhere Man" (not the Beatles song... far from it). Pub rockers Eddie and the Hot Rods, who paved the way for punk slightly before the Pistols, rock out with “Better Without You” and Chelsea’s singer, Gene October (Billy Idol and Tony James were in the original incarnation of this band) is in great voice.
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