The Stranglers, Gary Numan, The Wildhearts, Squeeze for new 2022 festival

The Stranglers 2021 — (Image credit: Coursegood)

The team behind punk/alternative festival Rebellion have announced the launch of a sister festival for 2022, R-Fest.

The four-day, 15,000-capacity event will take place in Blackpool on August 4-7, the same weekend on which Rebellion Festival is due to be staged at the town’s Winter Gardens.

The organisers say: “Whilst still staying true to the punk and alternative roots of Rebellion Festival, R-Fest looks to broaden the scope of artists playing to include acts who had their origins in alternative music but went on to achieve huge mainstream success.”

The headline acts across the four nights are Levellers (August 4), The Stranglers (August 5), Gary Numan (August 6) and Squeeze (August 7), with The Wildhearts, The Undertones, Pop Will Eat Itself, Toyah, Buzzcocks, The Primitives and Altered Images among the supporting cast.

“At last!” says organiser Jennie Russell-Smith. “After the long delays and world craziness we are absolutely delighted to give you the full R-FEST line up for 2022 (apart from one special guest slot that will be worth waiting for). It has not been easy to pull all of these amazing bands together for four days, many bands are still rescheduling shows from 2020, but we are all incredibly excited for our first ever R-FEST line up; four days of bands in the incredible headland arena with the tower and the Wintergardens on one side and the Irish Sea on the other! It’s going to be amazing!"

R-Fest is an all-ages standalone festival, with day tickets available at £50 per day. But those who’ve purchased a Rebellion weekend or Rebellion day ticket will get into R-Fest free.

Full ticketing and line-up details are on the Rebellion website.

Next year’s Rebellion festival features Bad Religion, Circle Jerks, Stiff Little Fingers, Sham 69 and more.

R-Fest 2022 — (Image credit: R-Fest / Rebellion Festival)

Artists

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.