English punk rocker Frank Turner and his American folk friends break out their fascist-killing machines

Frank Turner

May 9, 2025

Mercury Music Lounge (Lakewood, Ohio)

Openers: Katacombs, Dave Hause

Folk singer Woody Guthrie's Gibson L-00 acoustic guitar was the first, in the early-1940s, to be emboldened with the declaration: "This Machine Kills Fascists." Other guitars, and stringed and non-stringed instruments, were later inspired by Guthrie's motto, itself adopted from American machinists conscripted during WWII. 

The idea of music, and anthropomorphized music-making machines, as weapons against fascism, hate, and oppression still permeates the spectrum of song today. But protest and anti-authoritarianism are especially rooted in folk and punk rock (and, of course, rap). As depicted in the Bob Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown" (2025), Guthrie's friend and folk icon Pete Seeger (played by Edward Norton in the film) was put on trial on charges of being un-American for his decidedly-American song "This Land Is Your Land" in 1955. Didn't stop him from playing it for the press on the steps of the courthouse after his hearing, or anywhere else, nor should it have. 

I like to think that all musical instruments, but especially acoustic guitars, are intrinsically opposed to hatred, discrimination, and any group that "otherizes," for the purposes of causing harm to or excising, people based on race, gender or who they choose to love. None of the guitars played by Frank Turner, Dave Hause or Katarina Kiranos (Katacombs) in a three-act acoustic show May 9 at the Mercury Music Lounge in Lakewood, Ohio, came out and said it outright, but you could tell they definitely had it in them. 

Turner and his two openers each took the stage solo, each with acoustic guitars (and, in Katacombs' case, a keyboard) for a night of music that ranged from sweet, somber, sad and reflective to angry, defiant, riotous and loud. 

First, Katacombs brought a sound distinctly her own, blending the alternative edge of Tori Amos with the folkrockadelic diversity of Joan Baez. Katacombs is the latest creation of Katerina Kiranos, herself a unique, genre-bending, multicultural blend with a Spanish mother and a Greek father. She's also well-accustomed to mixed media, as a scuplturist crafting furniture from bone and wood. She puts all of that into her music, playing songs from her debut album "You Will Not," on her first-ever tour, that bridge language, seamlessly transitioning from English to Spanish, as well as emotional highs and lows. Halfway through her 30-minute set, she performed a "magic trick," switching from keyboard to guitar in a cloud of vape smoke. 

Up next, Philadelphia-born Dave Hause kicked up the energy level with a punk-folk-rock Americana singalong, belting anthems like his latest sure-fire radio hit "Look Alive" and the high-octane "Hazard Lights" from his 2023 album "Drive It Like It's Stolen" in a voice and with a lyrical style that recalls Canadian counterpart Bryan Adams and alt-country singer-songwriter Jason Isbell. Hause also laid bare his heart and regrets with the song "Gary," about a boy who he bullied in school, as he explains and expresses: "Hurt people hurt people. I hope you don't hurt anymore." In the segue into his love song for his hometown of Philly, "Sandy Sheets," he poked light-heartedly at regional rivalries, a favorite pasttime in Ohio. 

Dave and later Frank both paid tribute to a common friend, Scott Hutchison, the Scottish singer-songwriter and founding member of the band Frightened Rabbit, who seven years to the day of this show took his own life. Hause weaved a bit of the Rabbit song "The Woodpile" into his own single "Low." Turner worked into his set another Rabbit cover, "The Modern Leper," which he ended on the same note with which he began his own "A Wave Across a Bay," a tribute written about Hutchison and his reaction to the sad news. 

Hause's anti-fascist, scumbag-shaming protest song "Dirty Fucker" turned into a shout-along as the singer and his chorus released an enormous amount of pent-up anger and frustration. Then, the tenacious troubadour cooled things down with a stripped-down "Fireflies" as the fans feigned the twinkle-tushied bugs by sparking the flashlight apps on their smartphones and waving them in the air. 

Frank Turner burst onto the stage in a Black Guy Fawkes tee, with the A's in the Appalachian folk-punk band's name substituted for blood-red anarchy symbols, and joked to the audience: "And you thought you were at a folk concert." Turner treated the Mercury Music Lounge to a selection of songs from his vast discography of 10 solo studio albums, some of which are reaching or nearing the mature age of 18, though as the punk rocker rebuffs in "Photosynthesis," none are likely to ever sit down, shut up or grow up. 

In the mix were songs from his latest "Undefeated," released a year ago, including the peppy punk love song "Girl From the Record Shop," the politely peeved "No Thank You for the Music," the adventurous escapist fantasy "International Hide and Seek Champions" (inspired by the mysterious disappearance of hijacker 'D.B. Cooper' and his ransom haul), "Ceasefire" about an imagined conversation with his 15-year-old self, and the album's first single "Do One," a triumphant thumb-nosing at the haters that has its own Van Morrison-esque harmony in the chorus (but with do's instead of la's). 

Turner turned up the heat with his unmistakably anti-fascist protest song "1933," released in 2018, which implores the world: "Don't go mistaking your house burning down for the dawn." 

No one rallies a singalong quite like Frank Turner, who is on a mission with every show (including this, his 3,032nd) to reach and engage every last person in the crowd. He admits hearing his lyrics sung and shouted back to him are food for his fragile ego, and the fans are more than happy to heap the delicacies onto its plate. Every song is singalongable, but some were written with live audience participation squarely in the lyrics or at least with that fully plotted out. The real crowd-pleasers include the limerick-like opener for this set "If Ever I Stray," the anthem of the road-warrior touring musician "The Road," one of his earliest hits "The Ballad of Me and My Friends," which posits that it's quite alright to be "definitely going to hell" because "we'll have all the best stories to tell." Another, "Four Simple Words," starts off with a singalong primer that won't be satisfied unless the crowd is also dancing along. But the song that perhaps elicits the loudest call-and-response is "I Still Believe," in which rock and roll saves us all -- a song that made up one half of a two-track encore that mostly skipped the part where the band or singer makes their fake exit for exactly 50 seconds of chants and foot-stomping before a gracious return to the mic. 

The evening ended fittingly with "Polaroid Picture," a stirring reminder to capture and hold on to the special moments, as fleeting as they may be or seem. Hause and Katacombs came back to the stage to lead and direct the crowd to sing the second of a two-part harmony in the chorus: "Let go of the little distractions, hold close to the ones that you love, cause we won't all be here this time next year, so while you can take a picture of us." 

And that we did, for this one night, this one time when things were okay. 

Robert McCune is a full-time journalist, a part-time photojournalist and an aspiring rock journalist. Follow his journey at every_thing_after_photo on Instagram, and look for the "Every_Thing_After" podcast on Apple and Spotify.