Agresión, Oi! Se Arma, Veneno Crew, Alea Jacta
VII Jornadas Antiracistas, Sala La Perla, La Laguna, Saturday September 11 2010
by James Tweedie
Tonight is about as eclectic as can be. About 200 assorted Punks, Metalheads, Hip-Hoppers and Skinheads (not of the neo-Nazi variety) are rubbing shoulders within the Aztec temple décor of the 'Pearl Room', a club inside a pirate-themed restaurant inside a shopping centre next to one of Tenerife's two motorways.
The occasion is the 7th Anti-Racist Day, organised by the Frente Blanquiazul (Blue-and-White Front), an anti-fascist organisation centred around the island's Club Deportivo Tenerife football team which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.
Tonight's concert follows a football tournament and lunch earlier in the day. As the banner along one wall reads: “The terraces unite, racism divides.”
Although varied in musical taste, the crowd is 99 per cent white. Still, you want the ethnic majority on your side against the Nazis.
The entertainment starts with a DJ spinning old-school rap. The beer is free until the barrels run dry, prompting mayhem at the bar. But then the compère comes on stage to remind us why we're here, shouting: “Where are my antifascist people?” until everybody raises a fist in salute.
General Francisco Franco, fascist dictator of Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975, was military commander of the Canary Islands before the 1936 military coup and civil war that brought him to power.
The conspiracy of the generals to overthrow the Spanish republic was hatched in La Esperanza forest, just a few miles west of here. The fascist era casts its long shadow of Spanish society and politics even today.
Local act Alea Jacta open up, and get the hairier heads banging with their brutal, high-octane thrash. By the end of their set the punks and skins are getting into it too, and their encore stirs up a combined-arms moshpit on the already beer-soaked floor.
The interlude is marked by football stand-style singing and some impromptu dancing on the stage, before Rap-and-Reggae collective Veneno Crew come on.
Also from this small town of La Laguna, Veneno look like Tenerife's answer to Wales' Goldie Lookin Chain, with eight MCs on the small stage and their DJ perched on a raised platform behind. They drop some original Latin-tinged beats, but lyrically they fall for too many clichés. But they entertain the crowd and end up with more fans on stage than on the floor for their final number.
Both Veneno Crew and third band Oi! Se Arma promote Canarian nationalism in their lyrics. This might seem like a contradiction at an anti-racist gig, but such sentiments are common in this country where expressions of regional identity were forbidden until after the Franco era.
The Hip-Hop contingent sadly evaporates before skinheads Oi! Se Arma take the stage, but their metallic punk gets the moshpit going again straight away.
Halfway through the set two member of local Power Metal band Hybris are invited on stage for a cover of one of their songs, and then Ska number 'Soy Tenerife' provokes mass skanking.
Madrid's Agresión offer straightforward hardcore to the thinning but enthusiastic crowd, and then at 4am it's time to get off home.