Manchester Punk Festival 2026
★★★★★

MY EXPECTATIONS for this year’s Manchester Punk Festival (MPF) could hardly have be higher after last year’s triumph. And, oh boy, did it meet them! 

MPF25 was a mind-blowing experience. The bands I’d wanted to see smashed it, and the ones we stumbled upon were even better. I’d only just moved to the city, and was beside myself with joy to find that the DIY, grassroots festival here drew in hundreds of punk bands across three days every Easter, and had been doing so for 10 years. 

But, as I get on the bus into town for this year’s MPF, I’m in a different headspace. The political situation, both globally and nationally, has only worsened. And because of baby due dates, family medical emergencies, Trump’s insane war on Iran cancelling flights (a minor inconvenience compared to the growing death toll and wanton destruction across the Middle East, obviously), my pals can’t make it. So I’m going solo.

There are close to 150 bands playing at this year’s MPF across six venues in town, and only a handful of them are familiar to me. It’s a great opportunity to discover new music, and MPF26 turns out to be chockful of absolute bangers. 

Some drunk guys I met after Mr Shiraz’s joyous show early on Good Friday convince me to check out Soapbox, a Glaswegian gang reminiscent of ’80s DC hardcore. Their relentless, fast-paced aggressive music has the venue, Gorilla, in uproar. Crowd-surfing and stage diving ensues. This is therapy.

Vocalist Tom Rowan belts out his frustrations with capitalism, the military-industrial complex, paedophile princes, fascists and Scotland’s private public transport. Occasionally, he drops the mic and jumps into the frenzy. My melancholy is exorcised. I feel ready again to go outside and smash capitalism.   

Highlights on Saturday are Kid Katharsis, a local singer-rapper-songwriter who’s beautiful soulful voice and jangly lo-fi, almost out-of-tune vibe carries him through some technical problems; Le Rox, a wonderfully heavy, almost gothic hardcore outfit fronted by a frenzied Valkyrie, and The Menstrual Cramps, queer feminist punks from Bristol who rail against misogyny, transphobia and the manosphere.  

The standout for me on this day is The Rebel Riot. Imagine Slayer meets Crass but from Burma/Myanmar. “We sing about the military junta and freedom,” Jojo, the lead singer, says at the start of the set. 

“This song is about the Rohingya genocide. We will never forget,” he yells before launching into thrashy brilliance. 

This is what punk is all about. You can’t beat the atmosphere of a band playing at ear-splitting volume to a large crowd rammed into a small venue — the Pink Room at Yes bar in this case. Bodies slam into each other and a crowd-surfer’s foot slams into the back of my head. Pure joy. 

I cannot make out any of the lyrics, it’s mostly screaming, and quite possibly all in Burmese anyway, but my god, the rage is palpable.  

At one point, the band invite two balaclava-clad lads in Antifa T-shirts on stage; I never find out who they were. One grabs a guitar, and the other joins Jojo shouting the house down in an explosive rendition of Bella Ciao. Hook this stuff straight into my veins. 

Their last song, My Buddha is Punk, begins as a prayer for peace… and then goes mental. 

On Easter Sunday, one of my friends is finally able to join me, and we’re three pints deep before the first band has finished. My notes on this final day are incomprehensible. 

I remember getting bruised in the mayhem Split Dogs inspired as their gravelly singer yells her lungs out and prances across the stage at the Union bar — reminding us that punk can also be about the good times. 

I have flashbacks of skanking away to the wonderful dub-ska-folk sounds of the Inner Terrestrials. I wish I could remember more about Peruvian feminist punks Tomar Control’s set. 

I was sober enough to recall the goosebumps Irked gave me during their amazing set. Imagine the Hives, but angrier and fronted by a pissed-off woman from the north-east of England. 

The band’s three-minute, politically charged songs has me dancing, thrusting my fist into the air and spilling my beer all over Gorilla. 

The lead singer Helen’s vocals, accompanied by the band’s energetic riffs, are completely infectious. Everyone flings themselves into a circle pit. The quirky syncopated guitars in Settle Down unleashes beautiful disorder. 

These are going to be a new favourite of mine. Their debut album, The Grievence, is coming out at the end of the month, and they will be on tour in May. Go see them. 

MPF26 is life-affirming and cathartic fun. It is both unbelievable and inspiring that a small group of local musicians and promoters manage to pull this off every year.  

You won’t be paying £20 for a hotdog or £12 a pint here. It’s just normal bar prices (which are high enough!). This year’s weekend tickets cost £120, an absolute steal for the amount of bands, podcasts, afterparties and other events you can experience. 

You won’t accidentally end up funding the arms trade or companies profiting off the genocide in Gaza either, because there is no corporate sponsorship whatsoever. You will instead be supporting the city’s DIY/grassroots punk scene, and you will see some amazing new bands. 

“The world we live in is a challenging place, made worse by the pieces of shit that run it,” read the words at the back of the MPF26 programme. “It’s nice to be around people like you instead.” Indeed. 

For more information see: manchesterpunkfestival.co.uk