An evening with Black Flag

An evening of Black Flag, the American hardcore punk band, at O2 Academy Islington in north London. The concert brings the group's raw, fast sound to a London venue that hosts concerts and shows.

Black Flag formed in Hermosa Beach, California, in 1976, around guitarist Greg Ginn, who founded the band and its SST Records label. Their early records, including the Nervous Breakdown EP, helped define the hardcore punk style of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Keith Morris was the original vocalist, and Henry Rollins joined in 1981, the year the album Damaged was released. Later albums such as My War and Slip It In, both from 1984, moved the band towards slower, heavier material.

The band's catalogue is therefore wide, running from short, fast songs to longer, more experimental pieces, and the title of this evening points to a programme built around that history. The group has a long lineage in American punk, and its influence can be heard in many later hardcore and alternative rock bands.

O2 Academy Islington is a live music venue in London, and this concert is a chance to hear one of the foundational bands of American punk performed in the city.