This weekend saw the return of Community Festival to Finsbury Park in London. Billed as a one day celebration of new music, the festival is spread across two stages, the main stage and the N4 stage which was tucked into a more serene wooded area of the park. Thankfully both were open air stages allowing great views of the bands without cramming into a hot, sweaty tent during a London heatwave.
The site felt so small it seems hard to comprehend the scale of people shown in images of the main stage, the crowds only really being felt as soon as you headed for a bar yet miraculously disappearing again when heading for food or the toilet. I think it would be fair to say that the bars are the one thing Community got wrong but I won’t hold this against them as the queues still weren’t as bad as Slam Dunk South!
Once festival-goers made it out of the queues for the bars, they were treated to a line up mirroring an indie poster-child reeling off their favourite acts at Reading Festival.
Sea Girls were amongst the first to take to the stage, playing an animated set they reeled off crazily catchy single after single and firmly nestled their way into my heart as a new favourite band. Gerry Cinnamon followed them with an equally rousing set before indie veteran Kate Nash took to the stage.
Having long admired and detested Kate Nash’s music in equal measures, she was an absolute revelation. Showing off the bass of her new material, she lit the stage up enjoying every second of being there as she cried out “no one fucks with a Londoner and gets away with it” as she launched herself into the crowd. It was of course Foundations which caused a rowdy and passionate Sunday afternoon sing-along – 11/10. I’m sorry I judged you in the past Kate and am 100% coming to see you again! Tickets for her upcoming dates are available here.
I then spent the duration of The Hunna’s set waiting for the bar, but made it back in time for Don Broco who played a set of fan favourites as well as new song Half Man Half God. Another band not afraid to get up close and personal, the boys injected real energy into their performance as fans sang along to favourites T-Shirt Song and Everybody.
Moving onto headliners Blossoms and The Kooks who are both critically acclaimed performers in their own right. It may have been an overdose of sunshine or the delay before Blossoms set but controversially, I really feel that both of these acts are more suited to more intimate venues. I really like Blossoms and was excited to see them, however I felt the beauty and power of their songs diminished the further back you were standing unlike the bands from earlier that day.
The same can be argued of indie royalty The Kooks who must have surprised many fans with how many songs they had tucked up their sleeve. Luckily, they have a real anthem in the form of Naïve which was undoubtedly the best part of their set and allowed them to close the show on a real buzz (or cloud of confetti).
For less than £40 Community Festival allowed me to see artists which I have long admired as well as discover new music (or a new love for Kate Nash) and for that reason I’d have to give it a 4/5.