Rebels are ready to rock!

The Rebellion Festival sees hard rocking punk bands take to the stage at blackpool’s Winter Gardens every year to the delight of cheering crowds.

The resort’s streets are painted every colour of the rainbow as lifelong punk fans with vividly dyed mohawks, leather jackets and plaid trousers flock from all over the globe to soak up the summer atmosphere.

Rat Martin, lead singer of punk band The Varukers, travelled from Nottingham to perform at the festival.

He said: “I come here every year. It’s one weekend a year everyone can come together with local people to have a good time. We do a lot of festivals and they’re all number one in my opinion, but Blackpool is always the busiest.”

Rat, 52, formed The Varukers at the age of 16 at the height of punk as bands such as The Clash and the The Sex Pistols s took Britain by storm.

He said: “Performing on stage is a great feeling. Sometimes you feel the pressure in the hours leading up to it, but once you get up on stage it all vanishes. Those four or five minutes on the stage are what it’s all about.”

The festival welcomes both old-school punk fans and newcomers getting their first taste of the musical genre. Green-haired Charlotte Rose, 24, travelled from Ledbury, Herefordshire, to attend the festival for a second time.

She said: “I’m planning on making it an annual thing because I came last year and it was amazing and I loved it. It feels like a massive family reunion.

“A lot of my family are here with me. I got into punk because a lot of my family were into it, and I never looked back.

“Younger people have usually got into punk through their older relatives. Some people bring their babies here and they look so cute dressed up in their little leather jackets. You see whole families of punks.”

The Rebellion Festival will run at The Winter Gardens on Church Street until Sunday and will feature big name punk stars such as the Buzzcocks, Stiff Little Fingers, the Angelic Upstarts and The Damned.