Rebellion 2026, Sunday

There was no way I was going to miss Violet Violet, who were first on at the Loud Women Stage. Fliss Kitson, the dance-behind-the-kit drummer from The Nightingales, had a teenage band with Cherie Percy and I'd watched their videos on Youtube. Here they were harking back to their young selves, but in the freshest and most powerful way you could possibly imagine. I loved them: they are such excellent musicians. The bass player was going through an Ampeg stack, the guitar amp was a Marshall, the drums were Fliss (nuff said) and the sound was loud and strong. I loved it that they were playing songs they'd written when they were eighteen, about friendship and horrible boyfriends and all that sort of stuff. There was this great almost motorik drive behind the songs, probably largely due to Fliss's power drumming. I also really enjoyed the vocal interplay- and it reminded me just how powerful unison singing is. It was the late Mat Fox of The Happy End who pointed out to me that unison…