I seem to bang on a lot about the New Cross Inn and Be Sharp Promotions. That's because both are really, really awesome. Friday May 25th 2018 is sure to go down as one of the greatest days in the pub and the promoter's history as this was the day that legendary Californian pop punk band Goldfinger played a small club show in London's best venue as a warm up for the Bank holiday weekend's Slam Dunk Festival. I was fortunate enough to know about the event early and I won't lie I did think "Okay Paul, whatever you say." when I was first told about it. It was also one of the hardest secrets I've had to keep. Then it was confirmed and we were allowed to drop the news first which was a really cool moment for us.
Tickets unsurprisingly sold out ridiculously fast, I believe it was in less than a day. Sadly because of this popularity a few scumbag touts tried to take advantage of people's desperation to get a ticket. I've got to give a lot of credit to Be Sharp Promotions for calling out anybody trying to sell tickets for more than face value or people just trying to sell tickets that they don't actually have. Fuck those people. If you know anyone who touts, kick them in the bits from me.
There was only one band booked to support Goldfinger as they were doing a special long set for us. London four piece pop punk act The Bottom Line were invited by Goldfinger themselves to kick off the night. We arrived at the New Cross Inn nice and early to get drinks and catch up with pals before the punk rocking began. It was interesting to listen to people make remarks about how small the New Cross Inn is. We found this amusing as it's probably one of the bigger non-academy venues we visit frequently. It was great to see that people were making their first trips to NXI, hopefully they'll be back again because it is such a great venue and deserves all the support it gets.
As I said before The Bottom Line were handpicked by Goldfinger to open the show and you could see why. The band play a style of pop punk similar to the early 2000s era that Goldfinger helped to define. The band are getting more and more popular in the UK's pop punk scene and are a very polished live act. They were on a four man mission to get the crowd warmed up and included a lot of crowd participation in their set, giving the ever expanding New Cross Inn crowd plenty of opportunities to sing along. It seemed like each and every song had some section built in for crowd participation. The Bottom Line seemingly have mastered their genre and, now that they have the endorsement of a band like Goldfinger, you can only assume they'll continue to become more popular.
Goldfinger absolutely smashed this set. I feel like we all had pretty lofty expectations and Goldfinger did far more than exceed them. I think it's been quite a long time since Goldfinger played a small DIY punk show such as this and it looked as if they had as much fun as the crowd did. This was one of those nights that was perfect in every single way – the band were great and so were the crowd. I can't remember the last time I saw a band as big as Goldfinger where the crowd was full of such sweethearts. Sure it was very rowdy but there was never a time where it got too much and everyone was genuinely looking out for each other. It was lovely to see – this is the magic of the New Cross Inn. Thanks to Goldfinger for coming over and playing the show and huge thanks to Paul for making this happen. It was something we won't be forgetting in a long time.
This review was written by Colin Clark. Photos by Emma Prew.
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