By Owen Chennetier, Third Year History
Inspired to act amid the crisis in Gaza and energised by a desire to introduce our excitingly ambiguous yet heartfelt music to a city we love, DAS BOOT presented ‘Punk 4 Palestine’ at People’s Republic of Stokes Croft, alongside bands Redland and Shale.
Wednesday the 19th of February was a day of firsts down at Jamaica Street, Stokes Croft: rising Newport stars Shale headlined the ‘Punk 4 Palestine’ event to tick Bristol off their cities-to-rock list, and DAS BOOT made their highly anticipated (by us at least) debut.
It’s worth adding I’d also never used a synth before. I still have near-zero idea of how to use it. So, the nerves were felt by a fair few people that night!
I joined DAS BOOT at the start of the year, when my housemates asked me to come along to rehearsals of their then 3-piece band. They wanted to extend my jester-like status from the boundaries of our house to the musical world, ideally playing an array of odd instruments throughout an imagined debut gig.
In the end, I stuck to some simple synth and tambourine, but the tin whistle was once a very strong contender (there’s always next time). In the endless sludge of final-year work that is bogging us all down, this gig was the lifeline for our ability to bear those soulless ASSL lights and its accompanying key-bashing.
The long walks for rehearsals from our houses to RS Studios could be hard and heavy work, but we always left there with such a buzz about the work we’d done that it was always worth the trip.
The band grew too, from the original 3-piece to a sextet, bringing in another guitar, myself on synth, and the viola. Songs grew around some of these additions, and before we knew it, we had enough material scrambled together to perform!
Noah, our esteemed co-founder on the right of the above photo, diverted most of his efforts to organising the event (an excellent justification for procrastinating doing uni work if he ever needs it).
The brilliant Redland, unsurprisingly a local University of Bristol band, joined the line-up as well as Newport/Cardiff-based Shale (who injected most of the ‘Punk’ into the event!) Not everything went to plan, however: a last-minute booking error by our previous venue meant we had to scramble for a slot elsewhere.
PRSC saved the day as I and my housemates (Noah and our dashing co-founding frontman, Harry) managed to secure the same time slot as we had advertised with the previous venue, narrowly avoiding disappointing friends, being unable to support an amazing charitable cause, and having a heart attack.
Our set comprised of six original songs (mostly definable as within post-punk, sporting lacklustre placeholder titles such as ‘btec radiohead’ or ‘Fontaines song’ to attempt to differentiate themselves in our minds, and an all-out butchering of ‘Love Machine’ by Girls Aloud.
Somehow on the night, that one ended up arguably being the best received! The set sat well as a bridge between Redland’s smoother yet funky tunes and Shale’s rougher, punky awesomeness. It was also a great chance to see how it’s done by some far more experienced bands.
A big part of our motivation for this event was our concern about crises happening in Gaza right now – a worry shared by many, many students in Bristol at this time. We decided to send all funds from our ticket sales from the event to the Gaza Sunbirds, a team of para-athletes working tirelessly to deliver aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
This includes food parcels, hot meals, shelters, and water systems for communities in camps and for those trying to return to their homes. We were so pleased to have seen so many people attend on the night, and we thank them for helping us to support the Gaza Sunbirds in these troubling times.
We’re also very grateful to Redland and Shale for their epic performances, playing selflessly for a great cause. It was the first time I’d seen them play, but it definitely will not be the last – I highly recommend it!
PRSC also provided the perfect space for an intimate gig where we were allowed a great deal of freedom to run our own event on our own terms, even providing a discounted price for the venue hire despite being a not-for-profit organisation.
That is the key message from ‘Punk 4 Palestine’: gratitude. Working together on this event to help such a worthy cause was a joy, and I and all of DAS BOOT are looking forward to the next exciting projects. Watch this space!
Featured Image: Yana RachkovaWho are you hoping to see headline the next 'Punk 4 Palestine' event?
