International Pop Overthrow 2025

Bands seen: Lora and the Stalkers, Jody and the Jerms, Samurai Seven, Emperor Penguin

The International Pop Overthrow is an event which happens in several locations around the world every year. I’m not sure why I have only just heard of it. From today’s evidence it seems like it’s a power pop festival with bands coming from all over the world to play.

Of copurse I would not have found out about this if I hadn’t had the very unlikely news that the Samurai Seven had reformed. I’d discovered this by chance just a few weeks ago, interviewed them for the radio, and now I am off to see them for the first time, 23 years after I bought their one and only album, Le Sport.

While talking to them in the week, they did say “oh, there’s a football parade in Liverpool on the bank holiday Monday that we’re playing the Cavern Pub. Might be some traffic problems”. So I decided to be smart, drove to Chester, parked at the station and caught a train up to Liverpool Central, which was indeed heaving with hundreds of thousands of drunks by the time I got up there at around 4pm.

The four bands I caught were all slightly different but all very good in their own way. As well as the Samurai Seven putting on a great high-energy set, I also caught Italian band Lora and the Stalkers, an Oxford band, Jody and the Jerms, who I had interviewed before, and Emperor Penguin, who I know less about but channeled a lot of mid-period XTC.

I had a good chat with Samurai Seven and Jody and the Jerms and left around 7.10pm.

There was some tragedy outside while I was in the pub – a car drove into the parade crowd, and injured about 70 people. I was 200 metres away. I didn’t know anything about it until hours later – it didn’t seem to dent the carnival atmosphere. While there was a big police presence, none of the people in the street were acting any different – everyone seemed to be celebrating like crazy. I spoke to some of the police (mainly to get directions because so many roads were closed off) and they were all very calm and polite, so you didn’t really feel like anything was wrong.

I think I was the only person in Liverpool yesterday not there for the parade. I was also the only person there who didn’t have my own personal flare.

So now I had to try and get home. Even before the car incident, the authorities had shut most of the stations and the only station I could use was Liverpool Central, which had a queue of more than one mile to get in. And it was pouring with rain. The police told me it was a four hour wait – by which time, trains wouldn’t be running.

After nearly 3 hours of either wandering the streets in the rain, or sitting in a bus shelter waiting for a taxi which never came, I found a bus which took me through the tunnel to Birkenhead. It was so weird to get on the bus – full of drunk Liverpool fans – and to hear them all cheer when the bus finally started moving. It was even stranger when they all sang “The Wheels On The Bus Go Round And Round” at full volume.

When we got to Birkenhead Bus Station, I ordered an Uber which took be to Chester (£40! but the driver was nice) and THEN – having felt like I should be home already – another hour and a quarter’s drive home. I finally got home 5 hours after I left the Cavern. Was it worth it to see a half hour set from four bands? Yeahhhhh!

Monday 26 May 2025, 276 views