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Punk At Sea Explores Rebellion Festival In Photos

by Tom Haugen

Before Coachella, Bonnaroo, The Fest or Riot Fest, there was Rebellion Festival. The multi-day event takes place in the working class community of Blackpool, England and hosts hundreds of punk bands across many stages. The streets become filled with colorful haircuts, jackets with spikes on them and plenty of well behaved outcasts who flock to the punk rock capital of the UK.

Now 30 years since the festival’s inception, Michiel Blijboom’s Punk At Sea (Earth Island Books, 2026) assembles hundreds of photos of the festivities as well as an in-depth interview with festival founder Jennie Russell-Smith. Smith even provides insight into assembling the festival in the mid ’90s, before the internet, as well as the day to day obstacles of running an event of this magnitude.

The bulk of the book is, of course, the photos. As someone who went to hundreds of punk shows in the ’90s and bought thousands of punk records, this was pretty nostalgic for me. Looking at photos of legendary bands like U.K. Subs, The Damned, Cockney Rejects, Agnostic Front, The Exploited, Anti-Nowhere League and The Adicts brings back times of scouring fanzines and re-reading the packaging from LPs bought from mail order long before the mall had punk albums.

Naturally, most of the photos are of the fans—the ones who truly make the Rebellion Festival such a spectacle. All the photos are captioned and showcase senior punks, punk families, punks in love and punks just enjoying themselves among the camaraderie. The fashion, the tattoos, the piercings, the band shirts and the mohawks are all displayed just as they were in the ’80s—the timeless, quintessential look you can spot a mile away.

The Rebellion Festival 2026 will happen soon, and what a line up: Stiff Little Fingers, Sham 69, Buzzcocks, Subhumans, The Chameleons, The Adolescents and hundreds more. If I lived anywhere near England, I know where I’d be.