Amelia Hiller is impressed by the quality of music and student friendly prices at Community Festival 2019

Written by Amelia Hiller
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Images by Korng Sok

On Sunday 30th June, three friends and I headed to London’s Finsbury Park for this years’ Community Festival, which promised to be a day filled with sun, beer and good music. It did not disappoint.

The weather was perfect for a festival, everyone was in a great mood and despite having just two stages, the pick of bands and artists was excellent. I arrived in the early afternoon about half an hour after doors opened, but didn’t queue for long and went straight to get a beer. Being in London, I wasn’t expecting student-friendly drinks prices, but £6 for a cider wasn’t shocking compared to other U.K. festivals, and the queue for drinks always went pretty quickly. I went to Community Festival last year, too, and the fact that all the queues went smoothly is an aspect which made me enjoy the day so much more. It might sound insignificant, but meaning you can go and get a drink and be back within ten minutes to carry on watching a set is a big bonus.

Sea Girls’ set was a great way to start the day: super upbeat and putting everyone in a feel-good mood

As soon as we had our drinks and went to the merch stand (I’m a sucker for a lanyard), we went to watch our first band. Finsbury Park was filling up fast, and spirits were high as the entire festival was filled with people singing and waiting for Sea Girls at the Main Stage. This was the first time I’d ever come across the four-piece rock band, who were formed in London in 2015 and released a debut single in June 2017. Their set was a great way to start the day: super upbeat and putting everyone in a feel-good mood. The atmosphere at Community was amazing, with music playing inbetween bands also attracting crowds; the highlight for me had to be the thousands of people sat around Main Stage singing the chorus to ‘Sweet Caroline’ in unison.

Afternoon at the Main Stage was, again, incredibly fun. Gerry Cinnamon and Kate Nash brought huge energy to Finsbury Park, from dancing around the stage with guitar in-hand, to Kate Nash immersing herself in the crowd to sing ‘D*ckhead’, much to the disdain of her security team. The sets did, however, seem really short; but I’m not sure if that was just because we were having such a good time.

despite the fact that I only knew a few of their songs put together, The Academic and Vista’s energy and the atmosphere from the crowd made them both more enjoyable than the afternoon at Main Stage.

We only watched half of the Hunna’s set and skipped Don Broco (regretfully, as when I was queuing for another drink their set sounded incredible), as we wanted to catch some of the bands on the N4 stage. It was really disappointing to hear that The Night Cafe wouldn’t be performing their set due to illness, but it’s completely understandable that it was too late notice for another band to play in their place. Both The Academic and Vistas were well worth a watch, and despite the fact that I only knew a few of their songs put together, their energy on set and the atmosphere from the crowd made them both more enjoyable than the afternoon at Main Stage. Understandably though, the crowd began to thin towards the end of the afternoon as people made their way to Blossoms.

We managed to get a respectable third of the way back into the crowd for Blossoms, a band I’ve seen too many times to count and have been a fan of since first seeing them as the support act for a Vaccines gig when they were just starting out. The set was varied but a little quiet, and they didn’t chat to the crowd much which I thought was a shame; Blossoms are always super funny on social media and release consistently great music, but always seem sort of bored on stage (I guess that’s just their vibe?).

Community Festival always manages to attract the best in indie/alternative artists

An incredible day of music in the sun culminated in the Kooks’ set. Singing to ‘Naive’, ‘Ooo La’ and ‘She Moves In Her Own Way’ along with some newer tracks as the sun went down was the perfect way to end such a fun-packed day. Community Festival always manages to attract the best in indie/alternative artists and for the past two years I’ve been incredibly impressed with the amount of fun I’ve had and the quality of artists for just over £40 a ticket. I’d highly recommend heading to London next summer for a day at Finsbury Park.

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