{"id":358135,"date":"2026-09-27T15:14:40","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T15:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/358135\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T15:14:40","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T15:14:40","slug":"the-anti-queens-were-londons-punk-rock-royalty-%e2%94%82-exclaim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/358135\/","title":{"rendered":"The Anti-Queens Were London’s Punk Rock Royalty \u2502 Exclaim!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The sun was high as Toronto punks the Anti-Queens<\/a> took to the stage on September 26 in London for Punk Rock Flea Fest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The quartet gathered around the drum riser for their customary horns up salute before taking their places and diving right into “Ladders” from their 2015 EP START RUNNING. The song was a bomb of energy, every element turned up to 11 and the band dialled in, singer-guitarist Emily Bones leaning into her more gravelly register to drive the story of the song home.<\/p>\n

The band went into “Bulldozer” off their 2024 album Disenchanted, the vocal harmonies between Bones and guitarist Valerie Knox sharp and cohesive, their voices sounding as if they were made for each other. The voices of the audience rose to join them, melodically purging frustration to find catharsis.<\/p>\n

Before the band started up “Crusade,” their song inspired by Canada’s repeated attempts to sweep the genocide of Indigenous people under the rug, Knox took a minute to reflect on this, mentioning the year of the closure of the final residential school, remarking that she was still in high school when it happened and that nothing about this was ever taught.<\/p>\n

The band went on to point out how everything comes back to colonial violence, calling out systems that benefit while people suffer, saying “Free Palestine. No one is illegal on stolen land. No pride in genocide,” garnering cheers from the audience. The song ripped by in a flurry of rage, with bassist Michael Crusty singing the last verse and the small pit increasing in size and energy.<\/p>\n

“Doomed Again” was dedicated to everyone in bands, with a special mention to all the women in bands and all the extra bullshit that they deal with. Knox took a moment to praise the bill the organizers put together with women, non-binary people and members of the LGBTQ+ community leading the charge. She encouraged more young people from marginalized groups to start bands, eliciting cheers from the audience.<\/p>\n

The Anti-Queens balanced heaviness and lightness throughout the show, making a point to talk about issues that mean a lot to them while also working in moments of levity, including a snippet of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” thanks to Crusty’s sample board and Bones’s song intros, like when she introduced their cover of Nirvana’s “Breed” by saying, “I wrote this song when I was four and some band stole it from me and now they owe me a lot of money.”<\/p>\n

Alejandro Serritiello of the Creepshow and MakeWar was back behind the drum kit for this show, and “Run,” the song about Bones’s disastrous love life, was dedicated to him, her now fianc\u00e9. “You can’t run now,” Bones joked as the band started up the song. The band dedicated “Saviour” to, of course, “our lord and saviour Satan,” and proceeded to emit a sonic blast of finely tuned punk that had everyone moving and singing along.<\/p>\n

The most movement happened with the show closer, “Worse Than Death,” which kicked the pit into high gear and prompted the largest sing-along of the set, Bones getting everyone to repeat vocal melodies. The band left the stage with a call for trans rights which was met with thunderous cheers.<\/p>\n

Dedication to their craft, absolute love of punk and commitment to uplifting each other as well as their community are the core tenets of the Anti-Queens, things that were front and centre during this show.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The sun was high as Toronto punks the Anti-Queens took to the stage on September 26 in London…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-358135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}