Rise Festival
Despite Boris’ inordinate level of buffoonery trying to cast a shadow over proceedings, Rise Festival did exactly what it says on the tin and got everyone up to party from 12pm in the unexplored fauna of Finsbury Park this Sunday just gone.
The new mayor once again showed that he is unable to leave anything unadulterated from his bodging by coming out to try and tone down the message of the festival from ‘united against racism’ to a more general theme of celebrating diversity.
As the sun beat down, a familar face strolled on to the stage to close the issue off. Terry Hall of the Specials proclaimed “I know there’s been some confusion this year about the message of this festival and all I want to say is fuck the BNP!”.
Yep fuck the BNP (who incidentally told their supporters to mark Boris as their second preference in the London Election). Check out the rest of the review below, we got up to some pretty awesome antics!
We made a fairly low-key start to the day having been to the Mexican street party in Mayton Steet (Holloway) the day before. The street party was full of crazy costumes, crazy dancing and (Holloway wouldn’t be Holloway without it) crazy people.
Our hungover states were less than ideal for the long bus ride down Seven Sisters Road however the mood did lighten somewhat when we weere greeted by thousands of people seemingly pouring out of every road like a hoard of sunglass-touting barbarians. We managed to battle our way through the neckerchief-wearing chieftains and rocked up at the main stage in time for the Dub Pistols, who’s song “Problem Is” seemed to strike a chord with the crowd, who, in the main, looked like they’d seen more ups and downs than a Snakes & Ladders set.
Dub Pistols (Peaches cover featuring Terry Hall)
Peaches and Ghost Town went down a storm with the crowd who were just getting limbered up when Beardyman came from nowhere to get everyone raving to his frankly breath-taking beatbox skills. He rinsed through his set, covering everyone from Michael Jackson to DJ Belissima via a whole manner of other shit - including a parody of Boris, ideal.
Check him out here at the 2006 Beatbox Championships:
CSS came bouncing (photos here from Jeff Galasso) on the stage and were disappointing to be honest. I just don’t think they have enough of a collection yet to keep the crowd happy for a prolonged show. This was demonstrated by the crowd crying out, literally, for “Let’s Make Love“, which promptly came on when I was at the Cider Tent; you can’t beat good timing.
By the time Jimmy Cliff made his way on stage (wearing what can only be described as a lairy yellow tracksuit) I was feeling decidely below par but toughed it out all the same. I toughed it out long enough for Jimmy to preach about the environment for what felt like a decade. Whilst I had no real qualms with his points of view, I just don’t appreciate being preached to on a Sunday, if I wanted that I would go to Church wouldn’t I? He then tossed aside his preaching and proceeded to nail “The Rivers of Babylon”, which got the crowd whining, jumping and generally showing their appreciation of the tune and general vibe. Everyone found time to stop what they were doing and take in the atmosphere, a song and an artist that summed up the glory of cultural diversity and as a consequence, as the sun shone through the clouds and the day drifted to a close, the words of Jimmy Cliff singing “You can Get it If You Really Want” was a ponderous and profoundly apt way to end a festival that will hopefully regain it’s remit next year despite the efforts of the Wimble.
