Wide Awake Festival – London, Brockwell Park – 23/05/25

‘Will youse lot write me letters when I’m in jail?’ joked Mo Chara, before bounding into a high-energy verse of Irish on the Wide Awake main stage. If you’ve been at all sentient this past month or three, you would know the fuss being kicked up over Kneecap. The Met Police have charged Mo Chara, one of the three members of the Irish rap group, with terror offences; the night before the festival, police entered Kneecap’s gig at the 100 Club; and an hour before their headline set at Wide Awake, it was reported that the Brixton council was being pressured to stop their appearance on stage altogether. Yet, there they stood before a crowd of 20,000, grinning in front of a sonic wall of ‘Free Palestine’ chants.

From midday onwards, Wide Awake Festival provided the Brixton horde of gig-goers with plenty of cracking acts and live music aside from the big names. After watching a couple in IDLES t-shirts attempt to push to the front of the VIP queue (ever the underdogs!), I managed to catch the end of Yuuf’s set, a band whose instrumental music, lined with smoky solos and laid back drum beats, set the stage quite nicely. 

With their deep-voiced indie gilded with sparkling female vocals, Ugly brought some 70s-inspired peculiarity to the main stage. Their guitar lines trickled with an ominous intrigue, undercut only by the fact that, according to my notebook, their drummer looked like ‘Paul Rudd with more hair’. I think the £7 pints had started taking a hold, at least after all the electronic card readers decided that they wanted to work.

If Donny Benét didn’t have that burly Australian accent, I reckon the raunchiness of his songs would land him on a list. Thankfully, as well as the charming voice and charismatic hairline, Benét’s tunes were smooth as can be, funky and sexy in equal measure. Songs which could easily turn to parody, Mr Experience himself keeps danceworthy and fresh with plenty of top-notch musicianship and a rich, 80’s blend of synths and sax.

My favourite discovery of Wide Awake would have to be W.I.T.C.H. Between their pointed hats and genre-twisting Zamrock stylings, the havoc-intending band proved to be slick and soulful, every song urging itself onwards with guitar solos, drum fills, bass hooks and lead singer Jagari’s defiant vocals. 

Getdown Services, as always, were a highlight. I first saw them supporting Pete Doherty last year in Lancaster (what a bizarre gig that was), and they’ve only improved since. The Bristolian duo are masters of crowd manipulation: they’ll call you tw*ts, make you dance silently with one hand, then rip into Jamie Oliver with some irreverent wit. They’re quickly becoming a beloved festival staple, so much so that there was a (successful) marriage proposal during their set. ‘Get back, love rats’ – these boys will be as big as Wreck-It Ralph soon enough.

English Teacher have never tickled my fancy. They clearly have great technical skill, and are smart musicians, but this has never translated into anything that particularly grips me. Take ‘The World’s Biggest Paving Slab’, for example: clever metaphor for the delusions of fame-related grandeur, but the song (and the whole of This Could Be Texas) feels more Hobo Johnson than ‘Jigsaws Falling Into Place’, too detached and stilted for me to really sink my teeth into. I’ll keep trying with them, and I hope it soon clicks for me.

Backed by her ‘very sexy band’, CMAT’s blend of pop and country injected a bit of violin-scratching, two-stepping, bottom-flashing, singalong goodness into the main stage crowd. As well as her more popular songs, she introduced a few never-heard-before tracks: one was the second song of the day to take aim at Jamie Oliver; the other, ‘Take A Sexy Picture Of Me’, came replete with its own TikTok dance, which put a slight sour taste in my mouth. However, it is hard to stay cynical watching such an energetic performance. The power of CMAT’s voice, the irresistibility of her personality, and the visible joy of her band washed over the Wide Awake audience, who responded to the positivity with loud voices and moving bodies.

In fact, the whole festival was one of support. At the Workshop Tent, Niall Morrissey and Emily Bourke, as part of the Croí na Gaeilge collective, honoured Ireland and Palestine’s shared history of resistance through some Irish-language anthems. Jeremy Corbyn took to the main stage part way through the day, extolling the bands and asserting the importance of ‘defending live music venues’. He continued, asking, ‘Where are the musicians of the future going to play?’ 

Corbyn turned his attention to Palestine, stating how music had always been a means of resistance, whether for civil rights, slavery or genocide. Most, if not all, artists showed support for Palestine throughout the day. It was with these final sentiments that Nadine Shah began her set, the thumping ‘Holiday Destination’ aptly echoing the chorus, ‘How you gonna to sleep tonight?’

But, as the headlines have made clear, the festival’s apex was the headliners, Kneecap. The foul-mouthed, language-bending, rap group are still being dropped from festival lineups like TRNSMT, due to Mo Chara’s terror charges (though Glastonbury has been confirmed); I can imagine many organisers rued their decisions after the reviews came in. Even the Telegraph had to admit that they are performers extraordinaire, awarding four out of five stars to their Wide Awake slot.

Throttling onto the stage to ‘It’s Been Ages’, the West Belfast trio provided a relentless barrage of filthy basslines, massive snares and Gaelic deviance; the crowd couldn’t have been happier. When they did deign to take a break from their ‘Fenian’ rhythms, it was to show no mercy to their critics, whether it be Sharon Osbourne or the British Government. It’s bizarre to think that those opponents, demanding Kneecap be banned from America and kicked off festival stages, self-proclaim themselves as defenders of free speech. One might even call them hypocrites.

Despite the insult-flinging, Kneecap didn’t deviate from the spirit of the festival. Jelani Blackman was brought on for a performance of ‘Harrow Road’, after which the group called him ‘the most underrated rapper in London’. They praised CMAT for her stellar performance, and were the first act (at least the first I saw) which took the time to acknowledge the BSL interpreter to the side of the stage. It was even educational, as the crowd of 20,000 learned how to sign ‘c*nt’. 

On that stage, Kneecap looked unstoppable. It’s hard to see how the constant opposition, even the terror charges, will stop their star from rising. They’re clear followers of the Malcolm McLaren School of Spin, and their Wide Awake show only proved that, despite all attempts to silence them, Kneecap was heard, even loved, by thousands.

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