Inspired by Beyond the Implode’s mention of anarcho punk rock gods Conflict, I finally scanned in their statement on The Gathering of the 5000. Essentially a big old bash at the Brixton Academy, which turned into a big old bash with the Metropolitan Police afterwards – the Brixton Riot which nobody ever mentions.

I was actually going to go to this gig, which would have been an impressive night out at age 16. But despite the stupidly low admission charge, my mates bottled out and I wasn’t dumb enough to go by myself. Needless to say, my parents went mental when they read about it the next day in the Sunday Telegraph…

I did end up seeing Conflict a few times after that and they were generally pretty impressive, despite tailing off into thrashy stuff by the early 90s.

Reading the text again, it’s strange how much the ideology is so all-encompassing, and how much it seems to cause problems – organising events is hard enough but when you literally have to Do It Yourself for everything (including worrying about what food is served!) you have to wonder whether or not it’s worth prioritising, or at the very least subcontracting out some responsibility.

But that is not the way of Conflict, and that is part of their attraction, no?