Psychedelic Porn Crumpets
Shredenhams, Bristol
6th November 2026
Photography by Anna Hatfield
Charlie Pinhey
Music journalist & online sub-editor for CLUNK Magazine based in Bristol. Fumbling around on social media trying to tell people about my interviews and reviews. Follow me @charvawritesstuff
Simple Things Festival take over Bristol’s Shredenhams for their opening party, headlined by Australia’s legendary Psychedelic Porn Crumpets
I saw that Psychedelic Porn Crumpets had reposted a video from a fan at their recent show in Exeter. The video shows a particularly raucous mosh pit and the caption over the top of the video read, “Thank you for coming back to Devon. Some of us farmers like ROCK MUSIC.”
It got me thinking about the last time I saw the Australian five-piece at London’s Wide Awake festival last year and the air of stiffness in the crowd whilst they were on. I will admit the crowd were redeemed later when headliners Kneecap played and everyone started putting themselves about a lot more (I lost my phone and a shoe in an accidental melee with the floor). But I remember thinking that it was a shame that the Crumpets didn’t get the reception they deserved, because they filled that space.
Shredenhams was certainly more suited to a Psychedelic Porn Crumpets gig. The band shot off with opener ‘Salsa Verde’ and how did we in Bristol respond? With an instant fucking mosh pit…Welcome to the Simple Things 2026 opening party.
No one was messing about on Friday; both audience and band seemingly propelled on by the quarter pipes, ramps and cold concrete walls which, if Shredenhams were to be transported to America, could easily have featured on King Of The Road back in the day. The backroom space we were all in evoked those early Californian stoner rock gigs of the late eighties and early nineties – sometimes echoey, but built to withstand the sonic blasts of the Crumpets’ new track ‘Okarena’.
This was a sharp departure from when before the band came on, where sweet hand puppets were made by the crowd against images projected on to the back of the stage, whilst ‘Nessun Dorma!’ swelled in the background. The band later revelled in the inevitable switch up in tone and genre when they started playing.
No one can doubt the staying power of tracks like ‘Found God In A Tomato’ and finally hearing these in Shredenhams went such a way in beginning to cement the venue as one of Bristol’s most exciting spaces for live music. Lead singer Jack McEwan commented on how if the venue was in Australia the council would have shut it down. This made hearing the thumping ‘March On For Pax Ramona’, with several reprises built in just to keep the pit going a little longer, even more special.
When people are crowd surfing all around you and beers are being flung about, what else can you say except, “Proper party, that.”
Photography by Anna Hatfield