Fox Reviews Rock

For the 4th time in 2 years we went to see Punk Rock Factory, this time was a little different though! It was an acoustic set at Rough Trade in Nottingham to promote their new album All Hands on Deck, which features 90’s classic songs turned pop punk!

Rough Trade is a record shop which we’ve been to many times before (St.Jimmy even kidnapped Rex when they first started dating to go to a vinyl event here) but this is our first time for a gig, we were excited but we’re not sure on what to expect.

To get tickets for this event you had to buy a copy of their album which you received at the gig, and although there’s usually an abundance of merchandise at Punk Rock Factory’s shows there was very little here (it did look like it was just what was left over from their previous tour merch)

After we got inside we headed over to the small area where there was a stage and lots of people crammed in for the sold out show, lucky they only have a capacity of 150 at this venue as around one third of the crowd couldn’t even see the stage, and those that could were lacking any personal space!

It was an acoustic set, which we were not expecting, Punk Rock Factory weren’t either until they were told a few weeks before the tour had begun. You couldn’t tell at all and we think they did a fantastic job although they were out of their comfort zone. Just before they came on stage they received the news they were at number 6 in the charts and number 1 in the rock and metal chart, they shared this with the audience as soon as they got on stage, we were all very happy for them and cheered!

The set was short, but they still managed a great variety of fan favourites such as ‘Under the sea’, ‘How far I’ll go’ and ‘Can you feel the love tonight’, as well as some tracks from the new album such as ‘Larger Than Life’ by the Backstreet Boys, and ‘Bye Bye Bye’ by N’sync!

During their set they also told us some stories of the tour and how they had to play SpongeBob multiple times in Germany as Benji had some problems with his bass, and that Stead was still learning the guitar solo on ‘Bye Bye Bye’. They played ‘Bluey’ twice at this gig as Stead wanted to nail the guitar bit, the crowd was full of children and parents so no one seemed to mind!

After the show everyone queued up for the signing and photos, although the queue took a while to move, it showed that the band were giving the fans plenty of time and no one felt rushed. When we were passing the merchandise stand we got chatting to one of the bands team members who was telling us how exciting it was for them to be playing Wembley with Bowling For Soup and Wheatus, and we were talking to her about music for a while.

Once it was our turn for photos and signatures with the band, we were shocked when they remembered us at Fox Reviews Rock and asked how it was going, we asked them to sign all the vinyl we hadn’t already got signed and had a nice chat with them. St Jimmy asked where they wanted him for a photo and made a joke about lying on the bench in front of them, that’s when Stead replied with ‘do whatever, you can get on my shoulders if you like’ while bending down, so St Jimmy got up, Peej shouted about the public liability and we got this fantastic photo!

We are really looking forward to seeing them in Wembley in December and again for their tour next year!

St. Jimmy and Rex 🖤☠️

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