While much of the UK will be celebrating the 70th anniversary of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, people in one corner of Bristol will be holding an alternative event entitled ‘F*** The Jubilee’.
The festival event takes place across three different pub venues on three different days and evenings in Easton from Thursday June 2 to Saturday June 4. The three-day festival kicks off at the Lion pub on the Thursday, with punk bands including Social Experiment, Drunken Marksman and Mutilated State.
On the Friday, the Easton Punk Festival moves to the Chelsea Inn, where Disorder, Money and Cocaine are performing. And on the Saturday, there’s an ‘all-dayer’ at The Plough, from 4pm to 2am with DJs and bands and music acts from the Rita Lynch Band to Kiss Me Killer and Hierarchy.
Read more: Thatchers controversy prompts three Bristol pubs to stop serving its ciders
The three day and night festival is being organised by Bristol’s DIY punk collective the Bristol Skum Collective, who have a long track record of putting on DIY alternative gigs, and Wrong Way Promo. Each of the three events are being billed as a ‘F*** The Jubilee’ anti-monarchy festival, with the Saturday at the Plough billed as an ‘anti-jubilee all-dayer’.
A promotional poster for the event, which references the Prince Andrew controversy, invites people to donate £5 per night to "support yer local punx".
The Easton Punk Festival follows in a long tradition of punk protesting against the celebrations of monarchy. The Queen’s Silver Jubilee was marked by the release of The Sex Pistols’ alternative national anthem God Save The Queen, complete with an image of Queen Elizabeth with her nose pierced.
And the build-up to the jubilee in a couple of weeks is also prompting something of a backlash - there was controversy when Liverpool fans booed the singing of God Save The Queen and the presence of Prince William at the FA Cup Final on Saturday.
The three pubs involved have been in the news already this year - they were the three in BS5 who said they wouldn’t be stocking Thatchers cider, because of the company’s links with the Society of Merchant Venturers.
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