In its 2025 edition, bolstered by a career-defining headline set from troubadour trio Kneecap, Wide Awake laid down a marker as London’s most quintessential music festival.
It’s hard to think of a time when a festival has been tampered by such a run of pre-event adversity as Wide Awake has in 2025. First ascending onto South London in 2021, the day-long early summer celebration hit its stride in 2023 with Caroline Polachek as the spearhead, whilst last year’s date with Aussie legends King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard upping the ante once again. This year promised to be the festival’s most significant moment yet, with increased zeitgeist hype, a switch in date from Saturday to Friday, an exclusive headliner and a unfathomably sprawling back-up cast.
Problems arose though. A week before Wide Awake was due to take place, Protect Brockwell Park declared triumph against Lambert Council in its ruling to allow use of the park for Wide Awake and its sister festivals Cross The Tracks, Field Day and City Splash, and others such as Mighty Hoopla. There was a tumultuous period where it was unclear whether the festival would be able to go ahead; one can only imagine the scramble and worry at HQ.
Also in the run-up to the festival, Wide Awake’s headliner were caught amidst a worrisome whirlwind. Kneecap, the contemporary rap trio from Belfast who put activism, freedom of will, Irish heritage and anti-establishment rhetoric at the heart of their credo, were set to play their only London headline of the year at Brockwell Park. A performance at Coachella though, threw the spectacle’s certainty into doubt, when support of Palestine saw their set’s broadcast cut off and under fire from authorities and public figures on both sides of the Atlantic. Then days before the festival, one third of the act, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh — stage name Mo Chara — was charged by the Metropolitan Police for an alleged terror offence.
Other Kneecap performances — such as shows at Eden Project and Plymouth Pavilions — were cancelled in the aftermath of the events, and there felt like there was a real possibility that the group’s Wide Awake set was in danger of termination, a fact they admit themselves when they finally take to the main stage in front of the biggest crowd of their career. But the festival stood strong, and starkly for their moral compass, providing a setting for the young, liberal generation to let out their anguish, celebrate their community, and be a voice for those struggling to find one.
So as a curious journalist prepares for the madness to come with a midday pint at a nearby South London Wetherspoons, there’s the sense that this year’s Wide Awake is no normal festival. This is a defining day for all those involved.
There’s a noticeable increase in police presence at the park gates. The air is thick with a wind that walks the line between apprehension and anticipation, the sun tooing-and-froing from behind the light grey clouds. The sniffer dogs bark and the gatemen glare, but a canned Jubel — peach, of course — upon entry settles any pre-match nerves. There feels like there’s almost too many endeavours to choose from; the time approaches 3pm, and there’s talks, speeches, bands and interviews to be undertaken. A stop off to hear a panel about Beauty Standards and a catch up with Liverpudlian romantic Luvcat later, and I find Jeremy Corbyn greeting the main stage.
The festival goers treat him as a returning hero — the man many desired as Prime Minister some years ago. He’s here to raise awareness, to back the festival, to spread words of hope and togetherness. As always, Corbyn shines through as the best of us.
Aside from rousing speeches and thought-provoking panels, Wide Awake boasts not only one of the most eclectic and surprising line ups, but also the most artistically rich. Its melting pot of idiosyncratic electronica (Daniel Avery, Sega Bodega), avant pop (Fcukers, Nadine Shah) and underground bands (Gurriers, Ugly) has been augmented by this year’s choice of headliners.
Mercury Prize-winning Leeds outfit English Teacher are a strong pick for the late afternoon set, offering an undergrowth of art-rock complexity that challenges behind catchy hooks and rewarding charisma from front-woman Lily Fontaine. CMAT, the Irish singer-songwriter putting a rejuvenating spin of country music, follows. It’s here that the crowd fully engages with the day. Her control and charm shines through, a set of unheralded joy and anthemic theatrics. We sway and sing, shout and scream, cry and applaud. A festival moment for the books.
As the sun sets, the crowd amasses once again around Brockwell Park’s main stage, awaiting the appearance of Kneecap. They are greeted by an explosion of noise, an overwhelming wave of support that they at one point must have feared they would never hear. They run through a plethora of cuts from their 2024 critically acclaimed record Fine Art, pausing every once a while to deliver messages of thanks and of intent. “Let’s remember how lucky we are to be in a field with our friends and not being bombed from the sky,” Mo Chara says between chants of “free, free Palestine.”
Electric in performance, charming in tone and piercing in message, it’s the kind of set that fills up your inbox, kickstarts conversations, and emits pure, unadulterated creativity. And, significantly, there’s no trouble to be seen.
The post-festival blues fog my brain as the panic looking for routes back to central London ensues. I drag my tired legs to Brixton station, Kneecap’s monologues ringing in my ears. A festival should facilitate moments, movements and the hope of change. And it’s hard to think of a festival in the UK doing it like Wide Awake right now. Where and when they will return is yet to be conceived. For now, for those who attended, we can merely be glad to have been a witness.
Words – Ben Tibbits
Photography – Garry Jones & Luke Dyson
