Taking place between August 7 and August 10, 2025, in the Winter Gardens of Blackpool, Rebellion Festival will return for another year of being the UK’s largest independent punk festival.

Post-punk legends PiL will take to the stage on August 9, returning to the festival for the first time since 2018. Their appearance at Rebellion Festival will accompany their ‘This Is Not The Last Tour’ tour, a highly anticipated tour after former Sex Pistols frontman and PiL’s lead vocalist, John Lydon opened up about the band potentially not being able to tour again after the recent death of lifelong friend and manager, John Rambo Stevens who passed during PiL’s last tour in December 2023, soon after the death of Lydon’s wife Nora in April 2023. PiL will perform a fascinating set featuring some of their most notable hits – ‘Public Image’, ‘Rise’ and ‘The Order of Death’ – from their vast back catalogue along with songs from their 2023 release ‘End Of World’.

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Joining PiL in August, post-punk band Peter Hook & The Light will hit the stage to perform a captivating set featuring hits from frontman Peter Hook’s musical contributions as vocalist and bassist to influential post-punk groups Joy Division and New Order. They will most likely perform upbeat and nostalgic renditions of some classic tracks from the two bands including: ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘Disorder’, ‘Blue Monday’ and ‘Temptation’.

Alongside PiL and Peter Hook & The Light, 2 tone ska band The Selecter will grace the stage with their infectious ska hits. The ‘On My Radio’ and ‘Too Much Pressure’ hitmakers were known in the late 1970s and 80s for their diverse racial and gender line-up – Pauline Black provided newly seen vocal tones in ska as lead vocalist alongside Arthur ‘Gaps’ Hendrickson (who sadly passed earlier this year), Neol Davies and Compton Amanor on guitar, Desmond Brown on hammond organ, Charley ‘Aitch’ Bembridge on drums, and Charley Anderson on bass. The group first gained acclaim as the flip side track on The Special’s ‘Gangsters’ single back in 1979. It is no doubt that The Selecter will bring energetic ska flare to Rebellion Festival next August.

The Rebellion Festival 2025 lineup will also encounter a performance from the Northern Irish rock band The Undertones, known for their Alt-Rock tracks ‘Teenage Kicks’, ‘Here Comes the Summer’ and ‘My Perfect Cousin’ from the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Other acts will include Hugh Cornwell, Bad Manners, Neville Staple From The Specials, Down By Law, Voodoo Glow Skulls and Toxic Reasons along with more exclusive sets from many more exciting acts.

The upcoming announcement of Rebellion Festival’s 2025 lineup carefully balances post-punk nostalgia with contemporary acts to display the eclectic and ever-growing nature of the festival and the genre of punk. It will appeal to multi-generational audiences and to new and old fans alike. Tickets are on sale now and can be accessed here. It’s certainly an event you cannot miss.

Formed in Coventry in 1979, The Selecter has become synonymous with the 2 tone ska revival movement in Britain, epitomising the movement’s core values with their multi-racial and multi-gendered lineup. Influenced by Jamaican ska music of the 1960s, bands such as The Selecter and The Specials combined the rocksteady beats of ska with new wave and punk, creating a genre that brought together not only two distinct types of music but also two races of people , thereby effectively acting as a frontline against racial violence and hatred.

Fronted by Pauline Black, who remains the group’s voice and leader to this day, the band shot to prominence in the UK with the release of three singles in 1979; “Three Minute Hero”, “Missing Words”, and the hugely popular and successful “On My Radio”, and followed this initial success with their debut album Too Much Pressure, released the year after in February 1980. Another album, Celebrate the Bullet, was released the year after but, due to the unfortunate timing of the release of the lead single (of the same name) and John Lennon’s murder via gunshot, the album sadly failed to see the success of their first, peaking at number 41 on the UK Albums Chart, and ultimately played a part in the subsequent break-up of the band in 1982.

Watch The Selecter perform their hit single “On My Radio” on TopPop in 1979 below:

After a stint as a TV presenter and actress, Black led a reformation and the band reunited in 1991, and have subsequently put out another 13 albums over the past 32 years. The current lineup features Black, of course, along with other founding members Arthur ‘Gaps’ Hendrickson (vocals) and Charley ‘Aitch’ Bembridge (drums).

Human Algebra, Black states to The Observer in an interview, is packed “with lyrics covering all the things I was thinking about“, including police brutality and racism (‘Stay Rebel’), knife crime in the UK (‘Human Algebra’) and fake news (‘Big Little Lies’), and such cultural consciousness will not be unfamiliar with lovers of The Selecter and 2 tone alike, given the genre’s close connection with cultural and class issues since its’ emergence in the late 1970s.

Watch “Human Algebra”, the lead single from the new album, below:

Human Algebra is available to pre-order now here.