It might be set in Brockwell Park, firmly south of the river, but Wide Awake Festival is about as ‘East London’ as you can get for a one-day festival. Amid a divisive general election (even if it is pretty unanimous how dire Rishi is doing), I don’t say that to pit London regions against each other.
The fact is East London has long-been home to the odd and eccentric, the weird and wondrous. Smashed avocado and oat flat white cliches aside, what draws many there is its art, its creativity – and, of course, its music.
Wide Awake is woven together by an assortment of people behind some of East London’s venerable venues (Hackney’s MOTH Club and The Shacklewell Arms in Dalston), along with programmers Bad Vibrations, LNZRT and some of the original founders of Field Day – in, you guessed it, East London’s Victoria Park.
That might all sound like meaningless geographical gibberish, but on the ground it engenders a festival that comes with more than a sprinkle of East London’s “vibe”, with plentiful edgy and alternative offerings. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – the sprawling, cultish Aussie outfit who were reportedly Wide Awake’s most-requested headliner ever – are perhaps the greatest ode to such a spirit, but more on that later.
Crumb would drop some tasty psych-rock morsels earlier in the day, the soft vocals of Lila Ramani befitting of the early afternoon haze of cigs in the sun. Unfortunately, less suited to the outdoor environs of the main KEXP stage were Dry Cleaning. The peculiar post-post-punkers sound impeccable on record – and more than capable of a dazzling set within an enclosed space – but in the wide open field, Florence Shaw’s spoken word didn’t quite light the spark. (Although there will always be a time and a place for their thudding track ‘Gary Ashby’ about a pet tortoise, obviously).
More attuned to the setting, for a shake-up and shakedown across the festival’s six key stages, were Fat Dog and Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul – albeit in very different manners. The south London five-piece first drew a sizable crowd, as they barked out their irrepressible tracks, with drummer Johnny “Doghead” Hutchinson in his customary latex dog mask. In a crowded field of British post-punk, this mosh pit-inducing pack proved why they’re no runt of the litter, with the likes of tracks ‘All The Same’ and newbie ‘Running’ bearing a stomping, Depeche Mode-like prowess.
Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul, meanwhile – the Belgian duo whose creative partnership spawned the delightful electropop project Topical Dancer two years ago – were a bundle of upbeat positivity. At one point, planned or not, Adigéry lost her shoe in the crowd, laughing at the matter to cleverly kickstart their track ‘HAHA’. They say there’s nothing more infectious than laughter – well, add a propulsive beat, a crowd of groovers and a pint or three and the atmosphere is as irresistible to sink into as you can get.
The Ghent dance duo were clearly cherishing the moment, as Pupul told us just what all this meant to us – and they could be found in the crowd enjoying Young Fathers not long after, savouring the festival offstage as much as they did on it. What they saw was hard not to fall in love with too. Young in name, but no longer in experience, the Scottish trio have always possessed a fine mix of poise and wild energy, with Alloysious Massaquoi’s serenity, Graham ‘G’ Hastings’ pained power, and Kayus Bankole unleashing a fervour, bouncing between them.
In a similar guise, the black and white screen capturing their movements contrasted with the likes of Heavy Heavy favourites ‘Rice’ and ‘I Saw’, but magnified the beauty of ‘Geronimo’ and old favourite ‘I Heard’. It’s Young Fathers’ ability to dip into both these two ends of the emotional well – the profane and the potent – that meant they offered the best set of the festival.
Variety seemed to be the order of the day for all at Wide Awake too. For as long as you could mosh to the spirited post-punk of Squid or soak up the serene climes of shoegaze stalwarts Slowdive, you could also indulge in a dose of techno escapism from Helena Hauff or Hessle Audio co-founder Ben UFO.
Electronic music is evidently more of a nighttime affair but the enclosed space of the Corsica Studios X DMY stage worked; and as the sun set on legendary German duo Modeselektor, the festival’s 10:30pm cutoff time began to feel premature (thankfully, the afterparties were twofold, at nearby Hootananny and one of the organiser’s joints, The Shacklewell Arms).
Which brings us neatly or not (they wouldn’t care either way) onto the festival’s headliners, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. As a reminder of just how eccentric King Gizzy really are, last year saw them follow up the release of their absurdly-titled thrash metal album PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation with their synthesiser-heavy foray into electronic music, The Silver Cord. And it’s precisely this absurdity that has drawn the psych-rockers such feverdom, as the crowd of devotees swelled for the main event of the day, unsure quite what would unfold.
This was by no means a set for a stop and singalong. Instead, it meshed the freewheeling of jazz in a sound that leant most prominently into the thrash metal of PetroDragonic…, after opening with the two menacing Infest The Rats’ Nest offerings ‘Planet B’ and ‘Organ Farmer’; subsequent track ‘This Thing’, with its lighter touch, precursed a set that was roughly two-part headbanger, one-part toe-tapper – a sprawling, intoxicating mix.
And as they eventually wound-down their slot with new track ‘Sad Pilot’ (a mark of yet more to come in the near future), the starting gun on a long, hot and chaotic summer ahead had been well and truly sounded.
