LIVE REVIEW | PUNK ROCK FACTORY | MANCHESTER ACADEMY 17/11/24 by Craig Harston

Punk Rock Factory have been making waves for several years now. Rising to prominence through lockdown with their videos performing covers of classic Disney songs, their second album ‘A Whole New Wurst’ dropped in late 2020 and the Welsh foursome have barely looked back since. Garnering more and more attention and playing bigger and bigger shows, this past weekend found Peej (vocals, guitar), Benj (bass, vocals), Ryan (guitar) and Kob (drums, vocals) playing their biggest show to date at Manchester Academy. Being an all ages show, the crowd was an eclectic bunch, from long time punks to more casual gig-goers as well as many family’s who had brought along their kids for their first live show.

The four piece quickly got the crowd going with the back to back ‘How Far I’ll Go’ and ‘Friend Like Me’, with frontman Peej getting as close to the crowd as he could on the latter song. Following a frantic performance of ‘Under The Sea’ the band then introduced the biggest surprise of the night for single ‘C’est La Vie’, bringing out original B*Witched members Edele and Lindsay to perform with them (“Some people say this looks like B*Witched”), delivering a fantastic performance of the song.

This was followed by a fast and furious version of ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ and an excellent rendition of the ‘Arthur’ theme, before PRF brought their merch guy, Lowercase Jay, on stage to perform ‘Surface Pressure’, with Jay getting a great reception from the crowd and chants of “Lowercase Jay”. The ‘Phineas & Ferb’ theme then went down well before Peej split the room into thirds, asking the different sections to do different harmonies before asking “Can you do this one? “Are you ready kids?”” (Aye, aye, captain!).

Donning costumes for the next section of the show, Peej dressed as a ringmaster to announce a competition to win his tour guitar before the band changed for ‘Thriller’, with Peej in the iconic red jacket and Benj, Ryan and Kob in skull masks! Midway through ‘Your Welcome’, members of the audience were brought up on stage to ‘rap battle’ Maui’s rap, with both receiving shirts for their efforts!

Talking up their upcoming new album of 90s covers, ‘All Hands On Deck’, they then performed latest single ‘Back For Good’, pointing out that if everyone bought 17 copies of the album, they might be able to get to number 1, but not for the money, just to see the look on Ed Sheeran’s face!

Heading into the end of the show, Peej marvelled at the fact that they had earlier played the ‘Toys R Us‘ advert to 2000 people before following this up with the old Milky Way jingle, ‘Red Car Blue Car’. PRF then played their most requested song, ‘Life Is A Highway’, and finished the first part of the show with ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’. After a short break, Peej returned to the stage to sing the first part of ‘Let It Go’ solo before the rest of the band joined him as the rest of the song kicked into gear and white streamers and confetti were fired into the air.

Punk Rock Factory showed once again why they’re born entertainers, delivering a rowdy set and the band now have the right sized venues to capture their energy – I caught them at one of their shows last year in one of the smaller Liverpool Academy’s and while they were as good as ever, the venue was clearly too small for how much their star had risen.

The Stick To The Covers tour has a few dates left with limited tickets available.