With DIY venues and culture currently booming in the UK. The U.S magazine and website The Fader, usually known for covering the next up-and-coming rap star, recently published an article on the DIY venues popping up around the country. But considering the DIY spirit of so much of the music coming out of Brighton, its strange there isn’t really an equivalent space here. The West Hill Hall isn’t entirely a DIY music venue, the other days of the week it’s putting on swing lessons and yoga classes. But promoters Dictionary Pudding and Feminist punk Riots Not Diets are definitely onto the right track by putting a significant portion of their shows on here.

After the crowd are momentarily transfixed at an attempt to adjust the direction of some stage lights, co-headliners Jesus and His Judgemental Father are able to begin. They don’t quiet live up to that incredible name (although in reality, what could?), at points their take on pop punk veers a little too close to Blink 182. But they come across with such open sincerity you would have to be pretty cynical not to slowly come round, and with lyrics tackling topics such as gender and queer identity, its exactly the kind of voice that Punk and DIY exists to empower.

The most immediate thing you notice about No Ditching is lead singer Naomi Stephens-Griffins’ deadpan singing in a thick Durham accent, which really helps to accentuate some of the great one-liners and snarly put-downs embedded into the bands’ punchy numbers. All of their songs have the whip and snap of a perfectly timed comeback. ‘Meat in Your Teeth’ is about the seemingly inherent arrogance of meat eaters when you’re vegan and contains the rather phenomenal line: “it's hard to see the logic of human superiority, when most of the people I meet are shitheads”.

These are songs that reveal the simple durability of punk, that the same bare bones components can be put together in different ways to produce an infinite number of songs. ‘Dickhead’ gets an enthusiastic response, with a rapid-fire rhythm guitar and the addition of that extra drummer beefs up the persistent, driving beat.

There’s a tongue in cheek cover of ‘Summer of ‘69’ by Bryan Adams and before you know it this sweet and very short set is over, probably not even surpassing the 20 minute mark. Not unsurprising when you consider most of their songs don’t surpass the two-minute mark.

There’s an encore and they play ‘I should read in bed, I watch GG instead’, about finding solace in the TV show Gilmore Girls. In a way, the female friendships that the show celebrates feel like the backbone of the bands own music. One song is dedicated to their drummer who they explain is “a legend”, as good a reason as any to write a song about someone. The evening has an almost an entirely female line-up, and while in this day and age this shouldn’t feel like a particularly radical gesture or even an abnormal occurrence, it still is. “My girls and me/ we make a pretty good team” sings Naomi. They most certainly do.

Louis Ormesher

Photos by Guy Christie

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