Punk bands with their punk vans

The image of a bat­tered con­vert­ed Post Office van lit­tered with emp­ty Lucozade bot­tles and crusty hum­mus pots hangs around punk like tin­ni­tus, but it’s increas­ing­ly less fre­quent these days. As run­ning costs soar, it often makes more sense for bands – espe­cial­ly small­er DIY ones – to trav­el to shows by train, bus or car, shar­ing kit with those who live more local­ly to wher­ev­er it is they’re play­ing. Oth­ers make do with a rental, or hire a dri­ver with a van from anoth­er band. As was the case at Man­ches­ter Punk Fes­ti­val over East­er weekend.

With 140 artists play­ing across sev­en venues, Man­ches­ter Punk Fes­ti­val is an inde­pen­dent, inner-city event that brings togeth­er bands across the broad spec­trum of punk from all over the UK and beyond. From Lon­don street punk vet­er­ans The Restarts, to Cana­di­an Fat Wreck Chords sta­ples The Flat­lin­ers, to new­com­ers like Man­ches­ter’s own dis­co-punk four­some The Red Stains, the line-up has some­thing for everyone.

Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Chris Bethell was there to cap­ture some of the bands with their tem­po­rary homes on wheels – some shared, some new, some bor­rowed, and some that are actu­al­ly cars with a very pre­car­i­ous game of ​‘gear Jen­ga’ going on in the boot.