We were blessed with many iconic British festivals last bank holiday weekend and I can say confidently, to anyone who went to Wide Awake festival last Saturday, their itch for festival season has been scratched! That day Brockwell Park was transformed by a community of over 20,000 festival goers, all who eat, breath and live for Indie, post punk, Techno and Electronica music including us Brokerz.
The morning of the festival I scrolled through the set list that consisted of such varied artists from emerging talents to established performers, giving us attendees a genre spanning festival, nothing like I’ve seen before! Adrenalised for the day ahead I sipped on a couple cheeky white claws, and made my way over. Arriving at Brixton, the streets were filled with crowds dancing, chatting and amped for the festival. Once I rolled in, the scenery screamed summer! Groups of people sitting together smoking, pints being sipped with the soft sounds of hypnotic, warm melodies from the band Crumb, who radiated such a feel good energy throughout the main section, preparing the crowd for a captivating day of alternative music.
Once a few friends arrived, the first stop was to the bar, brace yourselves many beers and seltzers were ordered throughout the day! We headed over to one of the many tents scattered around the festival and pushed our bodies through the packed crowd of sardines. We came upon the band Model/actriz, a band I haven’t heard of before but wow! The whole tent went crazy for the post-punk, queer bundle of explosive energy. The band performed such an immersive set with the lead singer Cole Haden getting involved in a classic British mosh pit, we didn’t want to miss a single moment. However, we were craving some dance music and ready to get our bodies grooving.
Walking up the hill, where the corsica tent was, we could hear the sounds of funky techno tunes and instantly knew who was playing. Ok Williams who’s known as the ‘multifaceted party starter’ definitely fulfilled our needs by playing some iconic dance tunes and naughty up-tempo tech bangers. She didn’t only get us girls grooving, the whole crowd of different generations were partying hard! Groups were forming dance circles, strangers sharing lighters and the sounds of people shouting “tuneee” Kanyin (Ok Williams) gave us the dance spark and made us wanting more!
A friend of ours told us to head over to the Red Bull set (which THANK YOU!) we wasn’t sure what to expect as when we arrived there wasn’t many people, but fucking hell! That was very quickly changed. Vanessa Maria absolutely worshipped the dance floor, packing out the place very quickly by belting classics from Amy Winehouse to Kate Nash and remixing them into hard drum and club music while adding dirty bass drops, that got the crowd instantly hyped and we was obsessed with her! I got a text from Iz saying she had arrived, I told her to head to this set asap… she was not disappointed. I’d say our feet were stuck at her set for over an hour and there was no sight of moving. We was there til the end, gobsmacked; the one and only word to describe her was ‘BADDIE’.
Back to the bar once again and throughout our wonders, we were all dazzled by the festival attendees. There was such a mixed crowd of beautiful people partying around the festival, every person you passed was beaming of joy from the sunshine intertwined with the kaleidoscopic day of music. Saturday definitely cured London’s seasonal depression, I had repeated multiple times that day “summer has officially arrived guys!”. The drunk giggles started to get louder and more constant, we sat down at the top of hill listening to all the music pumping from the multiple stages. Appreciating the banging view of London as the sun started to set, we were debriefing the day, talking about all the amazing artists we witnessed that day, and how consciously diverse the line up was.
Wide Awake exceeded our expectations, we had such a wholesome day and partied hard, every artist I heard gave an outstanding set. The most iconic part of the day was that this was my friend’s first British festival and word from mouth, she will be back again next year!
The whole festival all scurried to the main stage to witness the most anticipated and requested headliners King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizzard. They gave us the most epic psychedelic visuals and trippy light set, which matched their genre blending of psychedelic rock, pop and indie tunes. The sea of people were all head bopping and eating up everything the Aussie rockers were serving. I managed to find a random stall within the packed out crowd and got some shots of the main stage. Here I saw my favourite part of a festival when everyone gets together no matter a fan or just there for the vibes, partying with each other till the end. We were left with such an energetic and dynamic set, that we were non-stop talking about all the way back to the station, mesmerised by the whole day (my hangover the next day was so worth it)!