Rebellion 2026: Friday highlights

Friday at Rebellion 2026 meant another full day of Team LOUD WOMEN criss-crossing the Winter Gardens, from acoustic sets and new discoveries to old friends, bigger stages and late-night noise.

Huge thanks again to Magda and Jeanie for capturing so much of it in these gorgeous photos.

Here are some of our Friday highlights.

CRYSSIS

CRYSSIS brought punk songs into Rebellion’s Almost Acoustic room on Friday, proving that taking the volume down does not have to take the bite out. The stripped-back setting put the hooks and words up front, with the rough edges left exactly where they belong.

A strong way to meet a band away from the full electric wallop, and a reminder that a good punk song should survive without somewhere to hide.

50 Foot Woman

50 Foot Woman made the jump to the Opera House on Friday, a year after the Limerick punks played the LOUD WOMEN-curated Introducing Stage at Rebellion 2025. That is exactly the kind of progression we love to see.

They brought their Limerick punk rock to one of the festival’s grandest rooms, with 2025 release Wonder Erection adding fresh material to a band built for a much bigger stage.

Split Dogs

Split Dogs in the Empress Ballroom on Friday felt like the right room for a band whose entire thing is forward motion. Big, direct rock’n’roll punk, no unnecessary decoration, and a stage large enough to let it breathe.

Harry and Mil had already appeared on Rebellion’s Literary Stage earlier in the day, but this was the full-band version: loud, physical and built to hit quickly.

Carol Hodge

Carol Hodge took over The Old Vic at Rebellion on Friday with the kind of songwriting that does not need a huge stage to land. Piano, voice and sharp words gave the afternoon a different kind of intensity.

Her fifth solo album EffortLess InSecurity arrived in 2025, and she remains one of those artists who can move between punk rooms, solo stages and much bigger collaborations without losing her own voice.

Catfight

Catfight hit the Rebellion Introducing Stage on Friday with a sound that pulls hard from 80s rock, 90s grunge and modern punk frustration. It is chunky, immediate stuff, with enough melody to make the punches stick.

Exactly the sort of band the Introducing Stage is for: new enough to feel like a discovery, already sounding like they know what they want.

Critical Candy

Critical Candy on the Rebellion Introducing Stage on Friday, a three-piece punk band arriving with a run of new music behind them, including 2026 single ‘Your Misuse’.

There is something pleasingly direct about three people, loud guitars and no wasted space. Another name worth keeping an eye on beyond Blackpool.

The Baby Seals

The Baby Seals have been part of the LOUD WOMEN story for a very long time. In fact, they formed in 2014, so they’ve actually been around slightly longer than LOUD WOMEN itself.

They’ve played loads of our gigs and several LOUD WOMEN Fests over the years, so catching them again at Rebellion on Friday felt like running into very old friends who are still making exactly the kind of funny, feminist punk that made us love them in the first place.

More than a decade in and still going strong. Very good to see these seals still swimming.

I, Doris

Metamorphdoris, stage one. I, Doris took over the Almost Acoustic room on Friday with a newly worked-up set, pulling the songs out of their usual electric setting and giving them a different kind of mischief.

There was an extra Doris in the mix too: Attila the Stockbroker joined the Dorissses on violin, because apparently an acoustic I, Doris set can always become more Doris.

Two Rebellion sets in two days meant two very different versions of the band. This was the stripped-back one; Saturday’s Opera House would get the full superduper transformation.

The Puncturists

The Puncturists brought melodic garage punk from Barnsley to Rebellion’s After Dark stage on Friday, with debut album I’m Not Alright now giving them a full record’s worth of sharp, scrappy songs to draw from.

After Dark is a good home for bands that sound better once the sensible part of the evening is over. The Puncturists fitted the brief nicely.

Lene Lovich

Lene Lovich in the Opera House on Friday: one of alternative music’s most unmistakable voices in one of Rebellion’s grandest rooms. ‘Lucky Number’ made her a chart star back in 1979, but the appeal has always been the much stranger world around the pop hooks.

Seeing that catalogue still living onstage rather than preserved as nostalgia is the point. Lovich remains utterly singular.

The Empty Page

The Empty Page are very much LOUD WOMEN family by this point. They’ve played loads of our gigs and Fests over the years, including our Rebellion London preview at the Windmill and the LOUD WOMEN-curated Introducing Stage at Rebellion in 2024.

So seeing them back in Blackpool on Friday, this time at the Scream + Shake fringe show, felt like another chapter in a long-running relationship with a band we are always happy to bump into.