A Punk Prayer Answered: CBGB Festival, Under the K Bridge in Brooklyn
- karansinghjour
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 5 hours ago
This article was originally published on Clash
Punk has experienced a somewhat confusing yet undeniable resurgence over the past few years: Turnstile and Idles are among the biggest bands in mainstream rock right now; Coachella is attempting to regain its image as a music festival rather than a giant photo-op by booking acts like Devo, Suicidal Tendencies and Drain; and, of course, the genre has taken on a new form within hip-hop thanks to artists such as JPEGMAFIA, Danny Brown and redveil.
It’s all over the place, but also right in front of us.
This past weekend, New York City set aside a day to observe the culture by honouring its heroes and enabling prospects who have been tasked with carrying the torch. Almost two decades after CBGB in Manhattan permanently closed its doors in 2006, thousands of people gathered across the East River to celebrate the club’s thirty-plus-year legacy. Once a breeding ground for punk and new wave, it hosted everyone from the Ramones and Talking Heads to Patti Smith and Blondie. Today, it is a core memory of the movement’s heyday.
The CBGB Festival took place at Brooklyn’s Under The K Bridge venue on Saturday (September 27th), quite literally under the Kosciuszko Bridge. Similar to Pier 80 in San Francisco, the location’s industrial grey appearance perfectly fit the event’s grimy theme. That’s precisely why the relics on display from the now-defunct concert room seemed very much at home, with far too many people mistaking the preserved bar from 315 Bowery for a functional boozer.
Held in place by unclouded acoustics, the gathering featured a total of twenty-one acts across the CBGB Stage, Young Punk’s Stage and Hilly’s Stage. The Sex Pistols pulled out a few weeks prior, but does anyone even want to watch them without Johnny Rotten? Then again, does anyone really want to watch Trump-supporting Johnny Rotten at a punk festival in the first place? Fortunately, this isn’t an issue we need to deal with for the time being.
Whereas most of the action was at the main stage, there were several sets at the other two that deserve special mention. Of the established artists, Gorilla Biscuits held it down with zero compromise, while relatively newer names such as Teen Mortgage, The Linda Lindas and Destroy Boys made it clear that the past and present aren’t the only tenses at punk’s disposal.
Most notably, YHWH Nailgun had one of the most eye- and ear-catching shows of the entire day. Sort of like a cross between Radiohead, Korn and Nine Inch Nails, the experimental four-piece from Philadelphia brought stadium-sized energy to a crowd made up of less than a hundred spectators. Drummer Sam Pickard, who is also the group’s centerpiece, is terrifyingly spectacular in a manner similar to Zach Hill of Death Grips — not to be dramatic, but it’s tough to express in words just how incredible he is live.
At the CBGB Stage, veterans of the sport came through with full force. While Melvins and The Damned played on-brand sets, Lunachicks put on a show at their first gig since 2022. It’s a shame that the New York City punk icons don’t take the stage more often, because if Theo Kogan did her thing in front of an audience more often, Gwen Stefani might not have had the same reach among the cool kids before she began promoting Christian prayer apps.
Johnny Marr ushered in the evening with arguably the most flawless performance of CBGB Festival. The majority of his slot consisted of songs by The Smiths — ‘Panic’, ‘Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want’ and ‘This Charming Man’, among others — and he played them to perfection. Though such claims come with great risk, the 61-year-old sounded just as clean as his estranged bandmate from the original recordings … it’s almost like he could’ve done it all on his own. All in all, it was for the best that he was singing, since there’s just about as much space for Morrissey at a punk festival as there is for Johnny Rotten.
Before moving on to the final two acts, it’s important to be at least a little suspicious of Detroit. Motown’s eternal radiance aside, the city has an enduring track record of cultivating some of the most frighteningly talented disruptors for the better part of the past century. From John Lee Hooker to Death to MC5 to Alice Cooper to Eminem to Danny Brown — it just keeps going, and we still don’t know why.
To absolutely no one’s surprise, Jack White melted the entire crowd’s face off. It’s amazing just how much organised noise a man and his guitar can make, and he’s made it his life’s mission to demonstrate this over and over and over again, almost like he didn’t already make his point two decades ago. In addition to a healthy blend of songs by The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather, picks from his solo catalogue sounded just as robust as the established classics. That’s what makes the Third Man Records boss so unique: he’s been making music since the late ’90s, yet his fans never seem any less impressed when he plays his latest material. Sure, there’s nothing quite like watching him scratch out ‘Little Bird’ on his raggedy old guitar or improvise endlessly through ‘Ball and Biscuit’, but ‘Freedom at 21’ is truly just as exciting to witness in person. An authentic bluesman (who, for some reason, sounds like a conman from the 1950s while addressing the audience), he has made it impossible to undermine his commitment to music.
For the final act, loose-limbed Iggy Pop put everyone to shame. A seasoned maniac, his antics belie the physical capacity of the average 78-year-old man. Not only does he have the best posture in the game, but his crowd control is also unmatched. The way he disappeared into and reemerged from the crowd for an extended version of The Stooges’ ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ or bounced around while singing ‘Lust For Life’ simply doesn’t make sense, and that is why he is the prototype — the Godfather of Punk does himself better than the rest of us do ourselves, and just one look at him in the flesh is all it takes to accept this fact. Even Jack White, who was watching the entire show from backstage, was cheesing from cheek to cheek the entire time in awe of the master.
There simply will never be another Crazy Uncle Iggy, but the good news is his genes have spread far and wide. At this point, there’s no containing the chaos … CBGB Festival made that abundantly clear.