LONDON — In London, punk’s not dead.
Though most everything from musicals to comedy performances across the city were canceled in observance of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, a punk festival still raged on this past weekend.
And at a time of national mourning for the deceased figurehead of the British Empire, the event was provocatively named Decolonise Fest.
It doesn’t get more punk than that.
“Punk’s role has always been to challenge and aggravate the status quo,” said Stephanie Phillips, one of the festival’s founders and organizers, in the days leading up to the festival.
Since the 96-year-old queen’s death Sept. 9, TV channels and newspapers have focused on crowds who’ve swarmed London to pay homage to her.
Decolonise Fest is a reminder that not all of the queen’s former subjects feel the same way.
Challenging and aggravating
In Britain, challenging the status quo has often meant challenging the monarchy.
It did in 1977, when the now-iconic London punk band Sex Pistols released “God Save The Queen.”
And it still does now, as the YouTube video for “God Save The Queen” has been getting more hits in the wake of Queen Elizabeth’s death. (The song title is sarcastic, if you didn’t already know.)
“Punk never dies. But the Queen does,” read the top comment, posted the day after her death.
Though the late queen didn’t rule over England at the height of the British Empire, tokens of colonialism have been on display since her death, as the royal family’s finest jewels have made rare appearances.
The crown sitting on top of Elizabeth’s coffin contained the 317-carat Cullinan II diamond, which was mined in South Africa while it was a British colony. And another stone laid beside it in the queen’s scepter – the “Star of Africa” diamond. For years, a small but vocal minority of people has demanded the monarchy return these jewels, and other prized items like them, to their countries of origin.
“At a time like this,” Phillips said, “we really need to talk about decolonization and what colonialism really means. It’s not just a word. It’s violence. It’s genocide. It’s the forced removal of people from their lands and their culture.”
Playing and partying
There were parts of London on Friday night where crowds were somber and grieving. Thousands of people shuffled for up to 15 hours through the long, slow-moving queue to see the queen’s coffin at Westminster Hall. The BBC live-streamed the mourners as they walked past the guarded coffin.
At Decolonise Fest, the crowd was in the mood to celebrate.
As the Brighton band Currls took the stage, the bassist was having some technical difficulties. To fill stage time, the lead singer told him he should tell a joke.
The bassist snapped back: “The queen’s dead.”
The crowd erupted into cheers of, “Yeah!” and, “That’s it!”
Currls wasn’t the only band to bring it up. Later in the night, Beth Griffin of the band Grove said between songs: “In other news... the queen’s dead.” Cheers followed.
Later, Griffin clarified: “I think it’s sad when anyone dies, but I think it’s sadder when it’s 6 million pounds spent on the transitional phase that could be helping a lot more people.”
Decolonise Fest is intended to celebrate the “history and legacy of the punk scene” in London. The first festival began with 25 people at a show in 2016. This year, it’s a three-night affair, with 16 bands playing and workshops on everything from the “Black history of the banjo” to reproductive justice.
And Phillips said that colonial ideas occur within the music scene as well.
“Punk is now seen as a white genre, where in reality the people that built the genre, and the people who built rock-n-roll, were Black and white and from so many different backgrounds,” she said. “So to us, ‘decolonizing’ is sort of breaking things down and creating a new space where we can actually look at the truth.”
In short: It’s not just Sex Pistols.
Phillips believes a younger generation of punks are building a new punk scene in London, a more diverse one better suited to tackling the issues of 2022. In the UK, that means a historic cost-of-living crisis – which critics of the monarchy say the elaborate funeral rites are distracting from. Ms. Phillips has noticed interest in her Decolonise Fest has grown steadily over the years.
“The environment that created punk back then still exists now,” she said.
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