Manchester Punk Festival, now in its ninth year, is trying to keep the fading, counter-cultural spirit of punk alive. The three-day event – which takes place across multiple venues around Oxford Street – is committed to platforming up-and-coming bands led by women, people of colour and members of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as curating a stellar line-up of established acts from all over the world. For its latest edition, photographer Chris Bethell headed to the DIY music festival to capture the revellers in their natural habitat. “Punk is about being out there, being different and being accepted,” Chloe, who attended the festival, told Dazed. “This is a safe space to just be who you want to be.”
This year’s bill included Hot Water Music, A Wilhelm Scrream and Pissed Jeans (all from the US), as well as British bands like Jade Harpins, Rifle, and ska legends King Prawn. As well as the music, there was vegan food; a sober social, comedy and poetry stages, and a range of stalls promoting local DIY projects, including Safe Gigs for Women, WEIRDO Zine (an alternative South Asian Cultural collective), the renter’s union ACORN, and Tiny Paws MRC – a vegan-run animal rescue charity which finds loving homes for rodents and rabbits. Whoever said punks were scary? Maybe your grandmother back in 1976 – but she was wrong!
“Keeping punk alive is a great thing because it started as an anarchy movement, and then it’s just progressed,” Ymiah, of punk band Nettle, told Dazed. “But it’s coming back and it’s good to see – especially amongst people my age, like under 25.” Manchester Punk Festival may be being embraced by a younger audience, but now that punk is almost half a century old, does the actual genre still have any relevance? For Riyad, another attendee, punk will always be a way of life: “it’s about freedom and just expressing yourself however you want to be. It’s open to interpretation for every individual.”
Charlie, another member of Nettle, added: “I’ve worked quite a few jobs, but I feel like with punk, in the music, you can just express how you feel in the simplest way possible. You just tell the world how you feel. There are some things that you’ve just got to say, and if you can’t just say it out loud, you need the music behind you.”
See all of Bethell’s portraits in the gallery above.