Broken Witt Rebels at the 02, London. Photograph by Peter Noble.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

It is not often that Birmingham gets to wake up London, gets the chance to holler into the soft tissue of the capital’s head, especially first thing on a Sunday morning when the world has barely recovered from the day before, a Saturday in which the o2 Arena shook its foundations and sent shock waves across to the Isle of Dogs and hopefully terrified the Westminster village to its core.

Aftershocks though have more potential and for Birmingham band Broken Witt Rebels, the aftershock was as seismic, as loud and passionate as you could wish for as Greenwich once more delivered its time of day announcement, the noon day gun somewhere along the Meridian Line just 20 minutes early, for the Stone Free Festival boomed out to the sounds of one of the most intriguing Birmingham bands of the last 20 years and the aftershock greeted the stragglers and the pent up in the same dramatic fashion at the entrance.

Broken Witt Rebels came to conquer, they came to lift the Sunday morning spirits with ease and as the Blues enthused Rock, the staple of the Midland’s city, gathered momentum in the o2 Arena, that sense of belief, the conquerors will imposed, was as enjoyable as anything any visitor could hope for.

Loud, demanding, captivating and above all exciting, the young men from Birmingham through everything into the gathered crowd and they were appreciated for the stunning effort, the sense of gratification they insisted upon the o2. The day may have been dedicated to the world of the Progressive, the holiest of holies in terms of Rock dedication but this was Progressive in the sense that a Birmingham band, fresh faced but grizzled with youthful experience, could capture the day in such wonderful fashion. The Blues it was but it was Blues with a sense of purpose, of rock that was heightened and brutally calm.

With the set comprising of songs such as Cloud My Day, Howlin’, God Knows, the superb Georgia Pine and Shake Me Down, Broken Witt Rebels stormed the arena with a greeting to the day that many found rousing, the call to arms in the sound of the serene serenade, the bugle of the early morning Blues call. The band is only at the start of its journey but the trail it has laid out is one that cannot be avoided, this is the real deal.

Ian D. Hall