Daniel Whittle
Audio By Carbonatix
The creaking sounds of bowing floorboards at the historic Sons of Hermann Hall couldn’t be heard under the erratic feet of a frantic crowd, drowning under the booming sounds of shame, a five-piece English post-punk band. A stoic, shirtless Charlie Steen, the lead singer, shaded by plastic sunglasses, stood at the edge of the stage, overlooking the mosh pit that consumed the storied venue, shaking from the riotous noise of the five friends from South London.
Before breaking into the penultimate song, “One Rizla”, Steen followed his usual script, delivering a statement made at each and every show.
“We’ve got to go all over… that’s a big privilege, and we wouldn’t feel right if we weren’t always talking about what’s on our mind and what we believe we should be talking about. We’ve been saying free Palestine,” he yelled out, as drummer Charlie Forbes rolled in the background, and feedback from guitarist Eddie Green hummed in the back. “There are horrid fucking murders being committed in the USA right now by ICE. Fuck ICE.”
The band ventured to Texas after a show in Minnesota, where they donated all proceeds to Unidos MN, a grassroots organization dedicated to racial equity that has been actively rallying against recent tragedies in Minneapolis.
“Our hearts are with [Minneapolis] and your community, who have suffered so much tragedy and injustice against a force of evil,” the band wrote in a public statement on social media. “Our hearts break for all those across the country who are living in fear, and in theat, for crimes that they did not commit. Their innocence will ring long past this horrific moment in history.”
The choice was simple for Shame, according to Steen.
“It would have been very strange if we didn’t say or do anything,” he said to the Observer. “I think that goes against our morals and the ethos of the band. It’s just fucking abhorrent what’s going on… It seemed like a no-brainer thing to do if we actually mean what we’re saying.”
Texas and Minneapolis at the Center of ICE Issues
The band’s journey from Minnesota to Texas is the exact same as more than 100 detainees who were shipped to Texas after their arrest, including 5-year-old Liam Ramos, who, up until last weekend, was being kept at a facility south of San Antonio. A federal judge ordered the boy and his father’s return to Minnesota.
“We can do nothing but offer our highest respect and admiration for those who continue to rally against ICE, who speak up against what is wrong, and who refuse to accept the abhorrent crime that they are committing,” wrote Shame in a recent social media statement. “It would be wrong for us to not share our disgust for this gang of thugs and murderers as well.”
Ramos’ story, as well as the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, all perpetrated by Minneapolis ICE agents, have attracted international attention, triggering a nationwide boycott and the empathetic donations of at least one London-based band of musical advocates.
“One of the nice things about this tour is that we get to catch up with a lot of our mates all throughout the country,” said Steen. “We got to speak to them, which is a far greater privilege than relying on what the White House is saying.”
Punk’s Not Dead, and Neither is Political Awareness
“Silence is complicity” has become a call to action in the digital age, when people have greater access to information on injustices and equal opportunities to disavow them. A thunderous non-compliance reverberated through the Sons of Hermann Hall, through the ribs of fans who know the words in their sleep and into their hearts.
Steen, pleased to stand before a riotous crowd, commanded a willing audience, waiting for their cue to begin pushing.
“Let’s see how big it can get in Texas,” Steen said, watching as a pocket opened in the center of the floor for the fourth song of the set, “Cowards Around,” a song from their Cutthroat album.
Moshers pushed and shoved to Shame’s closest contribution to the noise rock genre as Steen sang out in a quick staccato, “cowards are politicians, criminals.”
Playing through technical difficulties, the lead singer never let his suaveness fade, admiring the group of fans before him. His bandmates, occasionally leaping into the air in free-flying moves, gazed on in equal appreciation of their Texas cyclone. The crowd of circling bodies required no stalls from Steen; it was cooperative chaos.
In the middle of the show, after sowing uproar, Steen slowly crawled on top of the crowd, casually surfing with both legs in the air. The rest of the band, sweat-slicked and smirking, played on. You’d never know that just an hour ago, the boys on stage were the same unassuming group smoking cigs on the venue steps as their unknowing fans walked past them and inside.
The show ended with a rendition of their latest album’s titular single, “Cutthroat,” and a mosh pit that, at least in the moment, felt larger than any body of water in all of Dallas, opening in the center of the floor. Without an encore, the band walked off the stage and out the door, returning to their lives as five guys from South London with a couple of instruments and strong beliefs.
After an hour of near start-to-finish commotion, the century-old floors of the Sons of Hermann Hall, used to holding up the cowboy boots of honkytonkers, felt like they might just crumble under the jumping platforms of Dallas’ small but enthusiastic post-punk scene. For an hour in a small upstairs room in Dallas, punk and its counterculture roots in political activism were revived with shame.
