Icons of Filth – Stig’s Memorial gig

Icons Of Filth Stig Memorial, The Forum, London February 2005

The Restarts were first on the bill (Haywire may have played before them but if they did I missed ’em _ sorry! Anyway, they set the standard for other bands to follow and played a great set of straight down the line punk rock.

Extinction of Mankind had a sound that was heavily influenced by the Amebix. They even did a stirring cover of ‘All Rise’.

Lost Cherrees are now a four piece band and are very active on the gig circuit supporting causes such as Fathers For Justice. They played mainly up_tempo old songs with some good sounding new material too.

Inner Terrestrials followed Lost Cherrees and provided a mighty fine dub sound at times. They included Paco, Conflict’s old drummer.

Paco, drumming with Inner Terrestrials — Paco (RIP), drumming with Inner Terrestrials

The Varukers: Marvin aka Taff I hadn’t seen the Varukers since about 1985 _ I don’t why because they delivered a blistering set that truly rocked the house.

Vocalist Rat had recently broken his ankle(?) but as soon as he hit the mike normal service was resumed.

The Varukers, Ricardo — Ricardo drumming with The Varukers

The Varukers now have two guitarists in their line up – for more ‘bollox’ according to their website. It certainly was working on this night.

The Oppressed had a loyal following in the crowd who got up on the stage during “These Boots Are Made For Walking”, no doubt encouraged by Mickey Fitz of The Business sharing vocals with Roddy.

Conflict played an unselfishly short set to get timings back on track.

Oddy from Conflict in the crowd — Oddy from Conflict

Subhumans

Bruce, subhumans guitarist — Bruce from the Subhumans

Icons of Filth taking to the stage

The gig featured several guest vocalists – First up to deliver Stig’s lyrics was Steve Cannone. Steve sang on Dividing Line, Cut The Crap and Fool Britannia and is a friend of the band from Long Beach, California.

Steve with Icons of Filth — Steve guesting with Icons of Filth

Jake from Active Slaughter - Stig Memorial gig — Jake from Active Slaughter – Stig Memorial gig

Gagz from fellow Cardiff punk band No Choice

Stig memorial gig - guest singer — Stig memorial gig – guest singer

Leigh from Excrement Of War / Screamer / Cruelty

Ben was next up and did ‘Death Is the Only Release’ and ‘Riddled With Guilt’. Ben is the son of one of the members of the band, Aitch.

Bev from the Lost Cherrees sang ‘Airwaves’ from the great Nostradamnedus CD.

Bev from Lost Cherees with Icons of Filth

Squeal was responsible for the Icons much admired and distinctive artwork. He joined up with Ben to sing Death Is The Only Release.

Squeal artist — Squeal – the artist behind Icons of Filth artwork

Kieran from the Restarts steps up to take over the vocal duties.

Kieran Restart with Icons of Filth — Kieran from the Restarts at the Stir Memorial gig

Icons of Filth and EOM — Ste from Extinction Of Mankind provided the vocals for ‘Fucked Up State’

Colin Jerwood (Conflict) singing ‘Enough is Enough’ with Icons of Filth

After Icons had finished playing there was time for some words from the band members.

Stig’s father had embraced each singer as they left the stage and came on at the end of the gig to make a short speech.

Stigs Dad — Stig’s Dad giving a speech at the end of Stigs memorial

It was the most emotional part of the evening with Stig’s father explaining how his son always gave 100% whether bringing up his his kids or supporting football. He’s going to be missed by so many different people for so many different reasons.