HACKNEY WONDERLAND returns with the third festival edition.

It is Sunday afternoon, and whilst some people are heading home for their Sunday roast, I’m heading to Hackney’s Oval Space for the second day of Hackney Wonderland. The end of festival season is here and October cold is once again driving us indoors to watch live gigs.

It’s the festival’s third year running, taking over some of Hackney’s venues for the weekend to showcase great new acts alongside more well-known names.

The area, which at first seem deserted, is still marked with the remains of previous night. Witty security guards are the only ones you see around, and my suspicions are confirmed as I enter the festival’s main stage, The Oval Space. For the first gig of the night there are barely any people.

Returning from the last year’s festival are Electric Child House, who wait about five minutes before hitting the stage, and a few people in the meantime manage to enter the venue making this slightly less sad than anticipated.

Leaving The Oval I feel blessed because Sebright Arms, which is holding the more noisy acts of the night, in only minutes away as I catch the last tunes of John J Presley‘s set. His raw vocals and general take on blues alt noir is interesting enough, judging by the last three tracks.

Asylums master their set with graceful madness, if there is such a thing.

There is nothing to say on the booking of Hackney Wonderland, a lot of great bands, yet I do overhear quite a few complaints on the inequitable distribution of headliners between the days. It might be that more people are likely to come out on a Saturday but fear not there are plenty of high quality bands to indulge your ears in tonight.

Catching a few well performed tunes from Theme Park before heading across the street for Tempesst at the Pickle Factory, an oddball of a venue but with a great sound so I’m not one to complain.

The East London based band is definitely a live winner. They’re best when they take it down and make space for those lush vocal harmonies. Tempesst‘s stoic stage presence works in their favour as they’ve got tunes strong enough to back this up. When the Banjanin twins, Andy (drums) and Toma (lead vocal), kick off the harmony in Broke Down Blues the crowd is in for a treat, and the sticky guitar along the seductive vocal gives anyone a kick in their loins.

Their highlight of the evening is probably still their forthcoming single, Sunflower Lady. A joyful tune with a bit of a rockers kick. Toma shows off some meticulous dance moves before taking us down and dreamy with the final track, Tidal Wave.

After trying, and failing, to find London Fields Brewhouse for the second time the frustration builds up to a level fitting perfectly with Cabbage’s modern incarnation of a Sex Pistols set. Tearing down the basement of Sebright Arms with their politically loaded, in-your-face punk performance, Cabbage break every live barrier possible in their interaction with the crowd. The set sees Lee Broadbent (lead vocals), Joe Martin (vocals, guitar) shirtless within the blink of an eye and the chaos unfolds steadily backed by Stephen Evans’ slamming basslines. As they say ‘fuck’ to everything from the NHS and Tories to Donald Thrump, we have one thing clear, this is one angry band and throughout their thunderstorm of a set you can’t help but feel angry with them.

Last overlap of the night has me running for The Oval Space and Lucy Rose’s headline performance as she wraps up Hackney Wonderland this Sunday evening. Though it is getting late Rose definitely has some determined fans and it’s easy to see why. In between live pearls like Nebraska, Shiver and Bikes she spends time talking to her crowd. “You don’t know how it is to stand on stage sometimes. I played this new song and I saw some people walk out and I just thought ‘oh shit'” she says.

Though she might seem insecure admitting this, her live skills and musical talent is undoubtable. Through amazingly varied set she changes between guitar and piano, and with an incredibly professional live band including the help courtesy of Theme Park’s Marcus. Like An Arrow is the singalong tune of the night and Lucy Rose’s soaring songs set a lovely end to this year’s festival.

In spite of hard to locate venues, the slight unevenness in the line-up and half empty gigs, Hackney Wonderland was indeed a well set festival. This being their first year expanding over two days, there is a room for mistakes. Whether they took on more than they could’ve handled or it was simply not the best idea to have a festival on a Sunday are the questions we may ask, yet the overall feeling was there. Good live bands go a long way in saving an evening from a disaster and in this case it worked.

As I try to find my way to the tube, google maps in hand, I’m sure we can expect a pretty decent festival next year.

Photos: Aurora Henni Krogh