Festival Review: East London Block Party

Now finding its stride, East London Block Party brought together buzzing new acts, independent magazines and a crowd eager to swap stages, stories and spilled pints.

If you were to ask a friend to describe me, they’d say that I was a writer and that I hated my job. It’s my defying trait, alongside my dad being dead. Any catch up or unexpected meetings with a friend will feature a mention of me hating said job. Here’s how the cycle works; I start off passionate. A slight glee in telling people what I do, with the connotations of it all. Yes, I am giving back to the community somewhat. I am a good person like this. I take pride in helping others and giving an ear to children eager to tell me about their fascination with the Titanic or some other tragedy. Any time a customer would come to the desk with a complex enquiry, I’d offer myself up to help them and sat as they inevitably spilled personal details about their life. A couple of annoying colleagues but these things come with every job, and I’m being sent to other libraries every so often, so I get a break from them. Until I start hating them, and in turn hating management for not doing anything about them and hating the system for failing hard working colleagues and letting lazy men with anger issues fall through the system. I’ve got the two year job itch, where these things have lost their spark, and the weight of responsibility doesn’t match the amount I get paid, and I dream of something bigger beyond these bookshelves. It has become a burden on my social life, finishing at 7pm to get into central London for 8:30 and just about catching a gig, missing a cinema screening or due to a delayed effect with alcohol, returning from a pub trip with friends spinning in my bedroom, knowing that I’ll be the one opening the library tomorrow. Much yet, I cut the corners, miss the opening acts, and get to the gigs. 

This would be the case for East London Block Party, a new multi venue event sprawling across four venues across East London in the same area. Blind, expecting and wanting. we’d spread ourselves across the four available stages all within a feasible walking distance from one another. You might find yourself swaying to something sad and sorrowful at Colours Hoxton, to walk into full unabridged shoe gaze in a squashed and dense venue like Jaguar Arms. With stages from D.I.Y Magazine, Hard of Hearing, Still Listening and OMEN, the options appeared to be limitless as well as tough, with clashes galore and a wealth of emerging musicians keen to make an impression on a curious crowd of listeners. 

LE and I promptly headed upstairs and found ourselves at the beginnings of Cardboard. An immediate look of affirmative approval was shared. Had I stepped into 2006? This is a compliment of the utmost highest. As someone desperate to witness the revival of British indie rock and its past dominance, no matter if you all got the landfill indie malaise. The track ‘Paper Aeroplanes’, is a feel good track centred on miscommunication and escapism.

‘Early Arctic Monkeys, no?’ I say to LE.

At helm with the sweaty room, through electric lead guitar lines that make this band’s sound worthy of a FIFA Soundtrack.

You’d struggle to find the online output of lighthaus, thus making this rely strictly on memory. The Still Listening Stage had some heavy hitters on their line-up, making it hard to decide which act we were going to tune into, as I swore myself to being spread across all venues instead of fixated on one. In the confines of Jaguar Shoes, sweaty and squashed against the arms of others, we stand amidst a wall of sound, rock antics, industrial, the fuzzy softness of the final track ushering in an element of shoegaze. In failing to ascribe them to an act known to myself, I found that this stood as the most singular act of the night.

We head over to Colours Hoxton next to catch Blood Wizard. Seeing them was on my list. On recommendation, as he opened for divorce, by nature of my job, I didn’t manage to catch them. Here he was, in all of his glory, a set displaying charismatic and smart lyrics, that were expressed on the 2024 album ‘Grinning William’. This set was a switch in tempo to the two previous acts we’d watched, marked by the slow sway of the audience. A penultimate high that I would’ve been more than content to end the night on.

The night did feel like a Block Party, in a sense. Between running into an old acquaintance in the smoker’s area for the first time in five years, or the two girls we find ourselves engaged in conversation with, started upon a compliment on my per Una style dress. Even on our journeys between venues, we found ourselves engaged with a man who’d been rejected from a club for his attire.

‘Girls, I have a question; would you say this is smart?’

‘I mean, it’s definitely a tracksuit, but it’s a nice one, LE responds.

Before he shortly sprawls into telling us about himself, even getting a snippet of one of his tracks live in the flesh. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t particularly like it, 

With East London Block Party still in its infancy, its ambition is clear. A program showcasing fresh faces as well as independent magazines and the work they do to promote these emerging talents. If something wasn’t quite for you, a five minute walk down the road would offer something that could tailor to your taste. A mixed crowd of old and young, with a thick spirit of unearthing and lager in the air, the slug and fatigue of a bad shift can be defeated with moments like these.