Punk Rock Factory and Nottingham are a match made in heaven. Having sold out Rock City several times, the lovable Welsh rogues returned this month for the opening night of their We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat tour, bringing their high‑energy chaos, nostalgic sing-alongs and inflatable animals bouncing over your head - and making Rock City the silliest place to be on a Saturday night...
Warming up the crowd was Sean Smith of The Blackout and Sappenin' Podcast, delivering a short DJ set full of emo and pop punk bangers, getting the crowd excited for the night ahead. Though not usually one for being quiet, Sean let the music do the talking; full crowd singalongs, pints in hand, ensued and he beamed like a proud father.
South Coast band The Bottom Line were up next, bringing a level of energy and crowd participation that’s usually only seen from headliners. What a band! Performing their first show since summer 2025, they christened themselves ‘Emo Rock Factory’ in homage to the headliner, and launched straight into their incredibly energetic set, with Best Days, Unpredictable and R.I.P from their 2025 release Life Lately making an early appearance. Each song they played seemed to get better than the last, with a pit opening up early on, where vocalist Callum Amies and guitarist Tom Newton joined the crowd, performing from the floor. As much as Amies was on stage, he was off it; whether that was standing on the barrier into the crowd, or crowd surfing across Rock City.
Finishing off their set with Fake Love and Reasons was a great shout; fans got to have that last-minute burst of energy, before Sean Smith returned for a short while to play a few more songs, with a bit more crowd interaction this time, whilst the bar queue lengthened, ahead of Punk Rock Factory taking to the stage.
Punk Rock Factory entered the stage as they meant to go on; cheeky, animated and chaotic. With their opener being Livin’ La Vida Loca, in seconds, Rock City wasn’t just a venue anymore; it was a cartoonish, high‑velocity playground where pop culture, punk riffs, and pure silliness collided. Everyone in the room was ready to scream every word to those songs from their childhood and beyond; with standout early on tracks being Shiny, Mamma Mia, Under The Sea, C’est La Vie and You’re Welcome.
Frontman Peej donned a pink sequined jacket in order to front an absurdly frenzied game of Connect 4 with two crowd members; culminating in chaos when the giant red and yellow discs where frisbee-d into the crowd - and with it only being the first night of the tour, the band were going to need those back! In keeping with the theme of 90’s family fun games, we were treated to Punk Rock Factory’s flawless renditions of the Chucklevision and Funhouse theme tunes, ageing some of us more than others.
A steady line up of childhood Disney classics including I Just Can’t Wait To Be King, Bare Necessities, Friend Like Me, and Animaniacs, Spongebob and Thundercats theme tunes followed, with newer favourites Surface Pressure, Running Up That Hill (which had Stranger Things to thank for its resurgence in popularity) and How Far I’ll Go keeping the momentum going.
Theme tunes continued, with fan favourites Power Rangers and Pokémon, making an appearance, the latter of which led to a large amount of crowd surfing, including one person dressed in a full Pikachu onesie.
The band culminated the set with a rendition of Rascal Flatts' Life Is A Highway before blessing the crowd with their most popular cover, Let It Go, although Bowling for Soup frontman Jaret Reddick unfortunately did not make an appearance to do his parts.
A Punk Rock Factory gig always feels less like a concert and more like being dropped into a hyperactive cartoon universe where everyone knows the words to the songs, despite either being much older than they were when they first heard them or not being born at the time of the release. The show never slows down. It’s relentless fun - a sugar‑rush of nostalgia, punk riffs, and communal absurdity.
The opening show of their We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat tour at Rock City set the bar sky high. If this is how they’re starting, the rest of the tour doesn’t stand a chance of keeping up.
Punk Rock Factory performed at Rock City on 7th February 2026.
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