Scenes from Saturday's Punk Island takeover of Maria Hernandez Park

The free music festival returned for the first time since 2019 to slam, mosh, skank and thrash in Bushwick

(Scott Lynch)

Punk Island has been a New York City music-festival mainstay since 2008, invading either Randall’s or Governors Islands with bands from all over the scene: hardcore, ska, grunge, transcore, Afro-punk, queercore, Latin American punk, on and on. In 2019, some 96 different acts performed on eight stages over on Randall’s, but then Covid forced the festival to cancel two years running.

Yesterday though, Punk Island made its sweaty, loud-and-fast return to the New York summer, albeit on a smaller scale: 17 bands on two stages, and in the heart of Bushwick, at Maria Hernandez Park.

“Over Covid we lost a lot of organizers,” Antonio Rodriguez, the festival’s lead organizer this year, tells Brooklyn Magazine. “People moved away, people were in difficult financial situations, so we knew we had to do a smaller festival. Most of the bands are local this year, too, people we’ve worked with before, and a lot of them are from Brooklyn, specifically Bushwick.”

The Dilators (Scott Lynch)

Still though, the festival ran for seven hours, with hundreds of people slamming and sweating and jumping between the two stages on the park’s main plaza. And then there was an after party with more bands at Rubulad nearby. Among the acts during the day were Pinc Louds, Winterwolf, Ratas en Zelo, Non-Residents, Shut Up!, Dino Skatepark, Paragnosis, and Kartel, each ripping through tight, roughly 30-minute sets.

Dino Skatepark (Scott Lynch)

As always, Punk Island is as much about creating a safe space for all manner of expression as it is about the music. In addition to the music there were a number of zine tables, as well as tents dedicated to harm reduction centers and sex workers’ unions and organizations.

Ratas en Zelo (Scott Lynch)

“I got into punk at a very difficult time in my life, and punk totally saved my life,” says Rodriguez. “So for me this is an act of service, to put together an event like this and make sure we can build a community and bring people together. That’s what it’s really about. The music is great, the culture is great, and we just want to keep it going.”

Here are a few more scenes from Punk Island.