Wide Awake Festival was worth the wait
Wide Awake’s inaugural festival had been a long time coming. Originally scheduled for June 2020, the debut of the indie music gathering was, like so many other events, postponed due to Covid. A barren, miserable year followed for all of the UK until, joyfully, things started to open up again. And so, 14 months late, on a temperate Friday afternoon in South London, a brand new festival was finally born.
If there are two things that the UK does well, it’s festivals and parks. Brockwell Park in Brixton is an absolute dream anyway, but bung a few stages up and invite some bands and music-fanatics along and you’ve got yourself a Friday to remember.
A lunchtime highlight on the Windmill stage was Idles‘ special afternoon set. Why so early? Well, they fact that they were due on stage in Bristol that evening might have had something to do with it. The 1.30pm kick-off time was ideal because it ensured that punters turned up nice and early, and the atmosphere amongst the crowd was celebratory to say the least. Festivals are back baby!
As the band ended a typically visceral, hour-long set with an anarchic medley of covers including Wonderwall, it was time to dash across to the Bad Vibrations stage for Brighton’s finest, Porridge Radio. The four-piece delivered a short, powerful set which featured tracks from their celebrated, Mercury-nominated record, Every Bad. Lead-vocalist Dana Margolin sang “You will like me when you meet me / You might even fall in love,” as the crowd yelled the words back at her. The festival had already proved itself to be a success, and it was barely 3pm.
Brighton was further represented at Wide Awake, with Squid, who started on the seaside city’s vibrant scene before relocating to London, up next on the Windmill Stage. As they ripped out tunes from their debut album, this year’s Bright Green Field, the overcast afternoon finally gave way to bright sunshine and blue skies for the first time in weeks.
One of the great things about Wide Awake was that, whilst it welcomed thousands of music-lovers, the site was still small enough to be able to get from any stage to any other within five minutes, so it was easy enough to whizz across to the Moth Club stage (god, we love the Moth Club, by the way), to catch the Los Bitchos party. If ever there’s a band to ring in the weekend, it’s them.
Sandwiched between fine turns on the Windmill Stage by acclaimed local act Goat Girl, and Black Country New Road, were two of the standout performances of the day over on the Moth Club and Bad Vibrations stages. Whilst the festival’s set timings didn’t cause too many nightmare clashes, one such issue was that Snapped Ankles and Kikagaku Moyo played at exactly the same time. The fortunate thing was because those were the two stages closest together, it it was possible to dash twixt the two.
London-based Snapped Ankles’ brand of dancey, almost trance-like post-punk-art-rock is always an absolute must at any festival, and in the shadows of the tent on this now gloriously sunny afternoon, this was no exception. Having spent so many month unable to play in front of an audiences, they implored the “CROWD TO BE LOUD” as they delivered a cracking set.
Meanwhile, Japanese act Kikagaku Moyo purveyed incredibly structured psychedelic rock which weaved its way through all manner of genres, for instance through Krautrock and Indian ragas, via massive freakouts and catchy melodies. If you missed their early evening set, you missed out and you must seek out this band of outstanding musicians at your earliest convenience.
After Canadian art-punkers Crack Cloud smashed through a thrilling set on the Bad Vibrations stage, and garage rockers Slift did the same to a packed So Young tent, next, Self Esteem, aka Rebecca Taylor, proved herself to be Wide Awake’s highlight. While many artists at an indie festival are content to just plug in and play, the Sheffield artist offers something different, and as dusk turned to night, her pop bangers were delivered with choreographed dance routines, and the likes of Prioritise Pleasure, How Can I Help You and I Do This All The Time were rapturously received. With her songs tackling subjects such as misogyny and objectification head-on, not only is Taylor one of the most entertaining acts around at the moment, but she is one of the most important too.
Soon, it was time for the Windmill Stage’s headliners. “This means a lot,” said Shame frontman Charlie Steen as he gazed out at the sea of faces in Brockwell Park and explained that the band, who are from Brixton, used to visit the park as kids.
Their set was a perfect blend of the raucous, singalong tracks from their debut album, 2018’s Songs of Praise (which was our album of the year) and the more expansive, experimental tunes from their latest record, Drunk Tank Pink.
The dual-vocals of Concrete was an early highlight, as was Born in Luton from their second record. Steen, shirtless after a handful of songs – as is tradition – was a mesmerising focal-point. As bassist Josh Finerty literally turned somersaults while playing, Steen stood still, other than his arms which jolted by his side, almost independently.
By the time the crowd were screaming “Bathe me in blood and call it a christening,” during The Lick, Steen was surfing through them.
As the set drew to a close, Steen announced, “Here’s a new song.” Playing a brand new track towards the climax of an epic hometown festival set would have been a brave move, and it turned out that the vocalist was just joking, as the band launched into One Rizla, which is the first song they ever wrote at the local Queen’s Head pub when they were just 16.
As crowds filtered away from their first festival experience in a couple of years, they did so with their ears ringing, their smiles The may have been the first Wide Awake festival, but we can say with absolute certainty that it won’t be the last.
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Review by Bobby Townsend.
