Meet The 16 Year Old Kickstarting A Revival Of Wigan’s Hardcore Punk Scene

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All across the UK individuals are keeping their local scenes alive and denying that it all revolves around London. This is Wigan’s Story.

Wigan Casino, The Verve and George Formby are usually the top three things that spring to mind if you ask what Wigan had to offer musically to the world. 

What most wouldn’t know is that Wigan was host to some legendary names before those names were even considered legendary, such as; Green Day, Fugazi, Napalm Death, Jawbreaker, Carcass & Frank Sidebottom. 80’s & 90’s Wigan had ‘The Den’, an event ran by friends for nothing other than their shared connection for Punk & Hardcore music. Naturally, scenes come and go, it’s inevitable, as venues change hands, people get older, move away, bands split up the list goes on… but every now and again it can take just 2 people meeting to kick things off again.

James would cross paths with Dave Arnold, one of the people who helped organise the, at the time, retired The Den, through a shared love of skateboarding, closely followed by hardcore and punk music. This would soon turn into helping James form his own punk band Slutch, a 3 piece with two other friends Lydia and Gracie, both of who are no strangers to skateboarding and punk music. Slutch are playing as many DIY punk gigs as they can get their hands on, but when the 3 members have a combined age of 45, it can be hard to get access to venues that will accommodate themselves and their friends who are under 18, particularly in Wigan.

Sometimes things can’t and won’t change, sometimes it’s possible to be the change which is where we land in 2025 with James. After realising opportunities can be scarce for Slutch regarding venue’s strict age limits, why not create an event, not just for themselves but for other young bands to play, with the added bonus of bringing established bands in the UK DIY Hardcore/Punk scene to the bill too.

With news of James’ mission to get a new punk event in Wigan up and running, it only made sense that former organisers of The Den passed their batten of the name down and allowed him to run the event under the same name that once got Green Day in a 100 cap in 1991. Which brings us to James’ first event and also his first sell out event, a 4 band Hardcore Punk bill featuring Moonflower (Manchester cosmic forest crust), Slutch (Wigan Sludgecore), Boxcutter (Liverpool Hardcore) and Usurped (West Yorks Beatdown).

The gig found a home in the 40 capacity sweat box that was  ‘Holding Cell’ at the Old Courts. Taking its name from being a functioning courthouse, I am unsure if the staff knew they would be seeing a front row of 10 kids along with their Hardcore elders swinging their limbs at full force from one side of the cell to the other. All 4 bands had a full and stoked crowd, and one that showed their appreciation for pumping some Drop D and pig squeals into Wigan once more.  A sell-out in any venue is good, but a sell-out for James’ first ever gig, and as a tester for the demand for a hardcore scene in Wigan, this just proved this surely can’t be the last one to happen!

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