The Verse’s Lynsey Downie went to Community Festival at Finsbury Park on 1st July 2018. Here’s what she had to say about the event.
Summer heat, beers and Indie music. That is Community Festival. A glorious Community that promised and delivered with their exceptional line-up for the day. The first artists to grace the stage with their presence were Belako and The Van T’s. They set the tone for the day with hits ‘Eat Me’ and ‘Blood Orange’, giving the audience rusty nail, guitar blasting, punk rock. The Marmozets followed, keeping up with the punk rock tone with ‘Major System Error’. Ten Tonnes came out with soft alternative tones with ‘Lay Out Me’.
The artists were split between two stages throughout the day. The main stage, and the N4 stage, allowing the audience to go back and forth between stages to watch their favourite performers. The N4 stage hosted up and coming names like Yungblud, Bad Sounds and Tom Grennan.
As the temperature of the day rose, along with the excitement of the audience, headliners graced the main stage. Sundara Karma particularly lit our hearts on fire with the iconic “Flame”, sending the crowd crazy, only adding fuel to the fire with fan favourites such as ‘Olympia’ and the forever sing-along ‘She Said’.
Then entered Rat Boy and, of course, moshing was inevitable. Teens in confined spaces with blaring punk music. This was accompanied by the Three Lions football chants throughout the day, which again was always inevitable with the World Cup happening.
Next up, Circa Waves on the main stage with a very clear message “it’s hot, it’s sunny, it’s ‘T-shirt Weather’”, but that didn’t stop the crowd screaming for ‘Wake Up’ and ‘Young Chasers’. Screaming was just about contained until the crowd got their gothic-pop sound fix, Pale Waves. They commanded the N4 stage with their performance, as always giving nods to The 1975 indie-pop style. ‘There’s a Honey” hit all the right notes, as the audience reverted back into ‘moshy’ behaviour.
Pale Waves – Performing on the N4 Stage
Finally, one of the most highly anticipated events of the day. It was The Vaccines on the main stage, who did an incredible job blending their old and new hits together. They covered the classics ‘Post-Break Up Sex’ and ‘If You Wanna’, as well as hits from their new debut album ‘Combat Sports’ like ‘Your Love is My Favourite Band’. As well as debuting their new single ‘All My Friends’ which had a catchy, folky vibe to it. ‘All My Friends’ is yet to be officially released as a song.
The Vaccines were followed by everyone’s favourite band during the teen-angst period, of course, the one and only You Me At Six. They graced the stage with the classic ‘Lived a Lie’ before playing ‘3AM’. Finally, the headliner of the festival Two Door Cinema Club, performed at the end of the night. As they began their performance, blue streamers erupted over the stage, causing people to jump in the crowd. The streamers created a beautiful site as they caught in the trees and blew across the sky into the sunset.
Two Door played all the hits we know and love from ‘Undercover Martyn’, ‘What You Know’, ‘I Can Talk’ and , of course, a forever favourite ‘Changing of the Seasons’. Finally, the set ended with an illumination of fireworks over the stage as ‘Sun’ played, giving a climatic end to the incredible indie festival.
Two Door Cinema Club’s Grand Finale to Mark the End of Community Festival
Next stop the streets of London as everyone continued to chant ‘It’s Coming Home!’, allowing the festival spirit to live on. Well, it is coming home in 2022, but until then we have Community 2019 to look forward to.
