Five years of existence, an on-going court case, immense controversy around headliner Kneecap and a forecast of bipolar London weather – Wide Awake was having quite a lot on their plate before gates opened in Brockwell Park this Friday. While speculation and concerns abounded about lineup changes and ticket sales, what Wide Awake delivered this year was an event of surgical precision.
The bet was simple: bring together outspoken activist bands, a set of workshops about art as protest, a full stage of everything punk, maybe the most gender-balanced lineup this year, a speech from Jeremy Corbyn (!) and a headliner making headlines on both sides of the Atlantic.
The bet paid off: the crowd they had catered for was there in droves. Wrapped in keffiyehs, with football shirts in black, red and green, of every age and every heritage, with tribal tattoos and pink cowboy hats, this alternative crowd keen on both the underground music world and the larger political issues heavily tackled in London and elsewhere had arrived to celebrate and protest and show support in many-coloured ways. I’ve not seen so many film cameras (someone had a Super 8!) or so many Nokia phones in the last decade, nor so many flags of Ireland and Palestine flying alongside from shoulders and extension poles at a gig. For a festival called Wide Awake, they sure proved they had been paying attention to the world around.
This feeling of “we’re all in this together” permeated throughout the day, no matter how many drinks were sold or how sweaty the moshpits became. The main stage had BSL interpreters broadcasting on the big screens. The first rule of moshing seemed to extend to everything else too: if someone falls to the ground, you pick them up. You protect those who need it. You hold people up.
Gaye Su Akyol
Since the very first artist announcements, this was the act for me. Severely low-billed considering they are superstars in Turkey, they filled out the tent by the end of their set, as, after all, theirs was one of only three acts not singing in English, a rare gift. Starting off with the hit İstikrarlı Hayal Hakikattir, they showed off the many wonders of Anatolian rock to a growing dancing audience. In a festival chock-full of incredible vocalists like CMAT and Nadine Shah, Gaye Su Akyol brought the emotional expressiveness and agility needed for microtonal Turkish musicality and a vocal technique as smooth and precise as Swiss watches. They also called out the fascist patriarchy wrecking the world and delivered their Rebel Song to the cheers of us all.
W.I.T.C.H
You could hear the Black Sabbath and the Pink Floyd in the bassline, and you had to keep in mind this music was contemporary with and not directly an offspring of the legendary psychedelic golden era of the 60s-70s. One of the greatest Zamrock bands of all time and pioneers of the genre, they filled the Moth Club stage with grooves and sways, with lead singer Jagari (now himself in his 70s) traveling around the stage singing with his cowbell. Like much music of their era, the keys play a central part, adding a cosmic dimension to their polyrhythmic hypnotic music.
The Punk offerings
The Shacklewell Arms stage could have easily been dubbed the Mosh Pit stage, as it curated a non-stop on-slaught of phenomenal punk bands from noon till night. Gurriers was the first I caught, with crowd surfers already on duty at 3pm. Their songs Top of the Bill and Sign of the Times particularly stuck with me, with their atypical rhyming patterns and heartfelt vocals, when not shouting at the top of their lungs to the enjoyment of their fans. Later on, I caught a few songs from Nashville band Snõõper, often labelled as egg punk (did you know that was a thing?) because of their often satirical or silly lyrics, but they sure packed a mean punch, like an Italian espresso on a hangover.
Over on the Bad Vibrations stage, Mannequin Pussy called for a ceasefire and a free Palestine before asking the crowd “I want you all to let out a primal scream”. If you’ve never heard a few hundred people yell their grief into the sky, it makes your skin crawl, it’s palpable anguish. When not spinning moshers, their blend of soft fragile vocals and angry growls make for an effective cathartic cocktail, building tension with one to more dramatically release with the other.
The Genre-Blenders
Famous, with their exhilarating coming-of-age-montage tone and heartbreakingly earnest lyrics, opened the festival. While at times the sound seemed to lean into almost emo territory, theirs is a continuously surprising approach to indie rock, adding more distortion on synth and bass than guitar, keeping the sound approachable to more pop audiences, going as heavy as they pleased for the rest of us. Running to a different stage, I had to stop for Donny Benét – you rarely get to hear 80s disco mellowed into a lofi vibe, with live saxophone to boot.
Following was Warmduscherr and what an incredible surprise! While my prep led me to believe they were a playful borderline-goofy dance rock band, live? Dear Lord, this was genre-mashing at its finest. Incorporating everything from punk to their ending song with its early 2000s nu-metal energy, there was something for everyone to love and dance to.
Nadine Shah
10 minutes prior to her set time, Jeremy Corbyn gave an impassioned highly condensed speech spanning the long history of immigration and racism in Brixton, the threat many live music venues are under across the UK, the Peace and Justice Project, which among other things, supports up-and-coming musicians (including alumni and headliner English Teacher), as well as a call for ceasefire and a free Palestine. “After all, we’re here to celebrate music’s power to bring people together. And now my job is a very simple one” as he introduced Nadine to the stage. She gave him a hug, got in front of her mic and launched like a bullet to the brain straight into the song Holiday Destination, featuring the lyrics “Feed your son, feed your daughter / How you gonna sleep tonight?”
A performance both theatrical and intimate, it was as if she was reaching her hand to catch you specifically, tell you specifically about grief and beauty and long nights. She was radiant – statuesque and intimidating in her poses, like the living embodiment of capital-A Art. Also keeping with the Irish theme of the festival, Spider Stacy of The Pogues joined on tin whistle and vocals. A Palestine flag pinned on her suit jacket, Nadine’s was a set to remind you where you are, what to be grateful for and what your duty is moving forward.
Frankie and the Witch Fingers
Having first seen them open Desertfest London 2024, L.A.’s loudest punk band were a riot from start to finish. Forced to start a bit late and cut a song out, they launched full speed into the moshpit-maker Empire. Theirs was one of the most unique blends of punk the festival had to offer, mixing everything from Zamrock to funk to very tasty hardcore drumming. The crammed tent was full of die-hard fans, joyfully spinning into each other, lifting each other up to try and touch the tarps overhead. I’d made sure to be there early specifically so I could jump into the mosh pit and can happily report it was as sweaty and elbowy and fun as I’d hoped for. With a new album on the horizon, they included their latest single Gutter Priestess in between crowd-favourites like Futurephobic. To end, vocalist Dylan came down from the stage to yell straight into people’s eager faces and, testing the length of cable to the max, successfully crowdsurfed to the last chorus of Bonehead.
Read our full review of their headline gig in Brighton HERE.
SPRINTS
I swear this pun is inevitable – I had to sprint so fast, as fast as my mosh-crushed feet could take me, from Frankie all the way to the Bad Vibrations stage, where long-awaited Irish band SPRINTS were just launching into their set. My second mosh pit of the day helped me bounce my way to the front and, as I predicted back in February, I was more than happy to be in that maelstrom if it meant getting to see them up close. As explosive live as their debut album Letters to Self hinted at, they balance it out with a vulnerability rarely allowed so much breathing room in punk. Vocalist Karla Chubb gave her everything on stage, while not being averse to her own crowdsurfing moment, singing Literary Mind over the rabid crowd while a fan pulled from front row kept the three chords going on her guitar to the audience of hundreds (well done, mate!).
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets
The Crumpets squeezed every last ounce of energy from their public, with their heavy space rock, as colourful and textured as Indonesian fabrics. Having just released a new album Carpe Diem, Moonman, the Aussies took the chance to mix in new singles with old favourites, giving us a set full of such exquisite names as I Found God in a Tomato and Nootmare (K-I-L-L-I-n-G) Meow! They’ve sure delved more into math rock structures since I last saw them in 2023, playing with time signatures and new pedal effects. Having both the technical chops to deliver shreddy prog rock guitar lines and the willingness to add some crazy heavy metal drumming to the mix, the result has the bonkers creativity also native to their spiritual brothers in King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and the chest-punching intensity of a jackhammer cracking through the ceiling.
Kneecap
They started the show with the exact same three slides that, after their Coachella set, made the US government go into witch-hunting mode and revoke their work visas. In Brockwell Park, as in the Colorado Desert, the slides were welcomed with cheers of recognition and support from flag-waving, balaclava-wearing fans, who were also parents, siblings, couples, friends – 20,000 people from everywhere imaginable. Kneecap headlining was the final statement of a festival clearly aligning itself politically, subversively almost. The rap trio were obviously having the time of their lives watching such a crowd shout back both pro-Palestine chants and Irish lyrics with similar ferocity. They went for fist-bumps with the BSL interpreters, who not only kept up with fast wordplay in two languages, but also taught us how to sign Free Palestine and at least three curse words.
There is a lot more to say and I’ll say it, but the TL;DR is two-fold. One: this is the most anarchic club music you’ll be likely to hear this decade. Two: art and fun and protest have always gone together. This was a set celebrating our freedom to gather, to hug our friends and shout out lyrics. This was an event-in-an-event, riotously proclaiming the immense joy that we could be there – safe and happy, listening to music – while at the same time holding on to the civil duty we have to fight back against injustice and corruption. Fun is often a gateway into serious things., a muscle relaxer. Before you know it, you’ve walked 50 miles in protest to the tune of Get Your Brits Out. Whatever gets you moving. It’s what our right to assemble is all about.
Read our full review of Kneecap HERE.
Thank you to Wide Awake for another incredible lineup and to the crowd for being careful around and kind to our photographers, it takes a team to make it all happen!
Crowd and Festival Shots
