‘More! More fucking violence!” Jem Siow, frontman with Aussie hardcore punks Speed, is hectoring a crowd he deems to not be moshing hard enough. Perhaps it’s the 30-degree heat, or perhaps we’re soft southerners compared with those at Outbreak’s home in Manchester. Yoking together hardcore, emo, hip-hop and alt-rock with impeccable taste, its first London iteration is part of the wider Lido festival series and so it means there are incredibly un-punk sights, such as a VIP area and branded tequila experiences – but the actual music retains its edge.
Speed’s route-one punk is enjoyable enough though the sound in their tent is muddy and elsewhere there are much more colourful fruits of a punk mindset. NYC industrial-dance unit Model/Actriz also seem dismayed by their initially static audience: “I’m going to come out and scold you,” mock-huffs singer Cole Haden, which he duly does, performing two numbers roaming through the crowd and melting any English reticence. Half the crowd are pogoing, the other half body-popping to this exhilarating jet propulsion. US singer-producer Jane Remover causes similar pandemonium with breakcore-pop full of vocal hooks that hit like a video game power-up, enhanced by an appearance by rapper Danny Brown who later delivers a relaxed yet on-point main stage performance, with not a single word missed in the ratatat flows of When It Rain.
