Give it a Name is Dead

Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour

This is Part 1 of a 2 Part essay series on music festivals. This one a retrospective of a festival I attended in 2007. The next one on contemporary Warped Tour.

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Earls Court Exhibition Centre was once one of the most famous concert venues in London. Located in an upmarket district near Earls Court and West Brompton tube stations, very close by to the famous Brompton Cemetery and round the corner from where I went to school for 7 years. I walked past it not every day, but probably about half of my school days. Huge, ivory and grand with big red letters, art deco and imposing. It housed a wide variety of events throughout its life, from trade shows (my Dad tells me of attending The Great British Beer Festival there) to conferences, religious gatherings, pet shows, boat shows and probably most importantly, concerts. Led Zeppelin, Queen, Pink Floyd, Oasis, The Spice Girls, David Bowie.

It began being torn down in December 2014 to be turned into flats. Demolishing an icon of British music and replacing it with... not much. But 7 years earlier on Saturday, April 28, 2007, I went to my second proper concert at Earls Court: Give it a Name festival. My first proper gig was My Chemical Romance at Wembley Arena in March of 2007 and Give it a Name was the perfect follow on. The festival was billed as a multi-day Emo/Pop Punk and Alternative Rock event- in the vein of the American Warped Tour. Lots of bands big, small and unknown from lots of related genres, a huge crowd of dizzy youth together in one place to get something started. After a successful initial run in 2006 in Manchester, for 2007, it was held across multiple cities in the UK- and now Europe. Truly an unmissable event for every teen Emo and surely the biggest thing happening that Spring in the capital.

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big fan of this poster design

We went on the Saturday, the prime day and because there was no way we had £80 to pay for a 3 day pass. Me, Friend 1 and Friend 2. One day ticket was £32.50, which was a level we could compromise with our parents on. I cannot remember how we bought the tickets, but it was definitely not online. It was probably done over the phone, which is something I have never done again.

Give it a Name was also the first time I ever properly drank alcohol. Sipping and testing neat vodka on some steps near a roundabout before we went in. Supplied to us by the older concert-goers. It felt weird but alright, though I nearly lost my ticket on the way to the festival itself. These kind of aimless boozing sessions on park benches and concert steps were de rigueur for ‘00s teenage riff raff. Just a thing you were supposed to do to fit in initially, before you properly felt the taste for it and the booze got you out of your comfort zone, and hopefully into some fun MySpace photos. A clunky but maybe necessary rite of passage. I wouldn’t recommend it but I’m glad I did it.

Earls Court was actually pretty weird as a concert venue. Whether it was just because it was a rock gig or just how it always looked like the inside of the venue was cavernous and dark- giving the venue a feeling of being underground. It was huge too, with lots of people milling about, sort of adding to the festival vibe. After getting our sea-legs together, we staggered around inside and hooked up with a group of people, friends of friends and people we knew from MSN Messenger. Classic Emo girls with fringes and nervous boys in skinny jeans. Lots of sitting around in hap-hazard circles. People who had e-dated and people who had snogged each other.

We eventually said ciao to the friends and made our way to the main stage where the actual music was heating up. I was wearing a kind of fake pin-stripe suit jacket I’d bought in Camden Market a few months ago. My pride and joy as only teenage items of clothing can be. It had skull patches on it and a zip running down the back of the jacket. So it looked like it could unzip and come apart.

Main friend 1, who knew the teenagers who had passed us the vodka, was already growing out of Emo. He was earlier on the pickup than the rest of us- and was mainly here to see up and coming band Enter Shikari, a genuinely fresh and enduring band who blended Post-Hardcore energy and yelps, with a pop ear for tuneage and a back-rig of blaring synths. They came out of nowhere (well St Albans) in late 2006 with a string of singles that slotted beside the popular Emo bands, but were much more progressive and forward thinking. So they were kind of parallel to the scene, and appealed to many within it, but weren’t constrained or really “in” it, which is the way to do it. I was more concerned with scene Pop Punk stalwarts New Found Glory and edgy Emo group Senses Fail. I distinctly remember that Madina Lake were also there and who we ended up seeing, who were a kind of odd band of twin brothers who had a crossover hit with “House of Cards.” The kind of early viral hit which was becoming more common with the proliferation of video streaming technology. New Found Glory were fantastic- my first time seeing a proper energetic Pop Punk band on stage. We also saw the silly but endearing Zebrahead and met the frontman eating a cornetto at the merch stand. It looks like Saosin also played and I cannot remember if we actually saw them, we absolutely should have since they one of Main Friend 2’s favourite bands. If we didn’t, we were idiots, which in fairness, we were like 15.

Obviously the most exciting thing that happened to me was two cute girls teasing me between sets- unzipping the zip on my jacket back and giggling. I was embarrassed and we chatted.

It was all genuinely eye-opening as someone still discovering the world of live music. We wandered around dazedly enjoying it, the alcohol wearing off, and thinking that this was the kind of festival which we’d clearly be able to come back to for the rest of our lives. This moment and the bands that made it were solid, established and would clearly be stretching on far into the future. We weren’t a fleeting moment in the history of Pop Culture, we were what Pop Culture was now. There wasn’t a second I even doubted that- my teenage brain didn’t even think in those terms. It was just obvious we’d be on top forever. These bands would never fade and we would not grow up.

But they tore Earls Court down and it’s never coming back. Give It a Name went on pretty strong in 2008, though kind of scaled down dates-wise, limped to a vastly reduced 2009 bill (roughly 2006 size) and then fell over with a sort of “and introducing...” roster of smaller bands in 2010. But of course it did. 2010? How far away from the Emo moment was that. It was 4 years since the heights of The Black Parade. Half of the most popular bands had broken up or were gearing up to shift genres entirely. New bands were moving with new sounds, synths, gloss, neon. By 2010, I was going on my own in my now 6th form blazer to a shopping centre to buy My Chemical Romance’s Danger Days special edition with the Party Poison bandana (which I rediscovered a few days ago), and none of my friends were that interested. Only one of them who I’d met on line was still truly engaged with the band and keeping the faith. But even I got it- like yeah I loved MCR obviously but I’d moved on too. Have you heard of this band The Ramones? That’s quality. I still liked the music from back then (back then being like a whole 3 years ago) but socially, we’d all moved on. Friends were into electronic music, alternative RnB, Dubstep, soft singer songwriters and garage rock revival. Friend 1 and Friend 2 didn’t even go to the school’s sixth form. Everything was different, and none of us were that pained about it.

It’s not sad, it’s just the turn of time. It’s normal.

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First published at Perfect Sound Forever