“GOTTA find a way, find a way, when I’m there,” a voice howled through the knackered speakers of my best friend’s older cousin’s Vauxhall Nova.
“Gotta find a way, a better way, I’d better waaaiiiiit,” the vocalist wailed, his voice cracking into an incomprehensible and agonising scream — as if his fingernails were slowly being removed.
What was this wonderful, hypnotic noise, I wondered, as Terry, foot to the floor, forced his Nova up the hill, way past the speed limit.
This was 1996, and Terry was 17 at the time, about four years older than Colin and I in the back seat. He had a car, a girlfriend, and had left the drudgery of secondary school already. We thought everything he did was cool, especially the music he listened to.
Whenever I hear Nirvana’s Territorial Pissings, I’m taken back to those days, sitting in the back of Terry’s car as he opened our minds to punk.
Well over 30 years later, I’m still obsessed with this abrasively beautiful genre and most of its eccentric variants, like hardcore, ska, oi, Afro-, crust-, egg-, and Anarcho-punk, etc, etc, etc. I admit, I’m also partial to the occasional unashamedly pop-punk bands too.
Lucky for me, my city has played host to an award-winning, grassroots punk festival every year since 2015: The Manchester Punk Festival 2026.
Ahead of this year’s Easter Weekend soirée, I sent 10 questions to one of its organisers, Ian “Tree” Robinson.
1) What is the Manchester Punk festival, how much are the tickets and are there any left?
It’s a multi-venue, city-centre event held in the city centre of Manchester. We try to showcase what we think are the best UK and international punk/ska/hardcore bands around. Standard price this year is £120. There are a very, very small amount left.
2) How do you define punk music in 2026? I’d argue that it doesn’t have to be angry, three-chords, guitar-based music anymore. You don’t need a mohican to enjoy it (though it might help). Do you agree?
As cliche as it sounds, to us, punk is very much an attitude rather than an outfit or a sound. It’s about going against the mainstream, doing things for yourself, being respectful of other people, and making different types of people feel welcome and included.
3) You guys won the Best Small Festival at the UK Festival Awards in 2024. Do you feel any pressure from that, and if so, how does affect you? How do you keep upping your game?
No, not really. It was a really cool moment that we’re very proud of. We absolutely are not in this for awards but to come out on top that particular time, against the level of “competition” we were against, yeah, it was very cool, that.
Our main pressure probably comes from line-up expectation to be honest. So, no, the award didn’t offer us anything negative.
We try and be creative with our line-up, we’d hate it to feel stale.
4) It’s so good to go to a festival that hasn’t sold itself out to giant corporations. How have you managed to keep the festival grassroots?
Simply by doing everything ourselves. We work with mostly independent bands, pretty much all of them. We use independent venues. We encourage people to get involved. We use independent designers. And, maybe most importantly, we listen to our crowd.
5) You have podcasts at the festival… What’s the deal there?
It’s one of the more recent additions, just always trying to mix things up and add new things. Even though we feel pretty old, podcasts are very much our generation, so it made sense to explore it a bit.
6) I know this question is like choosing your favourite child, but which bands are you most excited to have booked this year?
So many I could name. I get really excited to bring bands here from the other side of the world.
This year I’m pumped to see Rebel Riot from Myanmar, Habak from Mexico and Tomar Control from Peru.
There’s tons of American bands heading over, too, like: Oh The Humanity, One Fall and Omnigone. It’s very hard to pick a few out.
I’m super excited to see Laura Jane Grace and Strike Anywhere too, two of my favourites.
7) I can’t decide who to see this year. So, gun to your head, if you could only see one headliner per night, who’d you go see?
We would all answer differently, but I’m going with Ignite, Spunge and Strike Anywhere. I could happily watch any of the headliners, though.
8) The world is absolutely fucked. Can you guarantee that MPF26 will restore my faith in humanity?
No, I can’t. Haha. I’m at the age now where I’ve accepted I or we can’t change the world.
We can at least create a positive community for us and our friends to be a part of, trying to fight off the rest of the outside world at the same time. It’ll do.
9) The art work you had on your official merch last year was great! It seems you always pick brilliant artists to design your merch. Can you tell us a bit about that process?
Very much like we pick our bands, we just look at stuff we like. We only have a couple of external designers so we all just bring some options and agree who to go with. This year’s are really cool. Shout to Lara (Unsure Animals) and Phil Bailey.
10) Can you tell us about any of the smaller bands playing at the festival?
I really believe you could randomly pick any band for your whole weekend and you’d have a good time. I don’t like to describe them as small because in my life they are massive but those are the bands that we do this for.
11) Anything you’d like to add?
Support local music, smoke weed, eat Chinese food, free Palestine!
The crowd at the Manchester Punk Festival [Pic: Ben Harrison]
