SON Estrella Galicia's micro-festival, Soundhood Hackney, sees six bands takeover Hackney for two days of live music, beer culture, and DJs.
In the past 18 months, SON Estrella Galicia have been establishing themselves on the London scene with events at Paper Dress Vintage in Hackney featuring the likes of Los Bitchos, Teleman, Dream Wife, Prima Queen, DEADLETTER, Swim Deep and more. On Thursday night, they kicked off their biggest London event to date: Soundhood Hackney – the two day micro-festival taking place at Paper Dress Vintage and Two Palms.
Soundhood Hackney is the first in a series of new micro-festivals in cities across Europe, with subsequent partnerships to follow in Madrid, A Coruña, Barcelona later this year, and Berlin and Granada in 2025. These events will include live music in venues, activations in record stores, new gastronomic partnerships, upcycling workshops, plastic collections on beaches and sporting activities in the same neighbourhood, all in a bid to support local and culture communities.
Following DJ sets from Jawa Jones and Harry James, Gia Ford took to the stage with an emotive performance featuring songs from her forthcoming debut album, including "Falling in Love Again", "Alligator", her latest single, "Paint Me Like a Woman", and the currently unreleased "Housewife Dreams of America". Meanwhile, Plantoid, who recently played at SON Estrella Galicia's micro-festival in Brighton, ramped up the pace of the evening with their janky post-punk and love of odd time signatures on display as they performed songs from their recently released debut album, Terrapath.
With kegs of beer flowing, and DJs in-between live music, the crowd were suitably warmed up for the acid house, '70s grooves of Sworn Virgins. Craig Louis Higgins Jr – vocalist of Warmdusher – and DJ/producer Quinn Whalley were joined on stage by Kuntessa who brought high camp chaos to the fold. Whether barking like a dog, or on her knees like one, she served as hype man throughout the set, encouraging the crowd to chant the band's name.
"I want everybody dancing! Those who are not dancing are fascists," Higgins Jr demanded, and was instantly rewarded with a sea of moving bodies. Sworn Virgins had the crowd entranced as they played songs such as "RWA", "Lazer Beam", "The Male Man", and "Searching For Hiro"; each member dancing around the stage and commanding the crowd to join in with them – "come on motherf*ckers, you paid for this!" Higgins Jr taunted.
The proceedings of day two are kicked off by a beer tasting at Paper Dress Vintage in which attendees were served the 1906 Black Coupage lager and, whilst comparing the elements of beer brewing (water, grain, yeast, and hops) to four key elements of music (drums, guitar, bass and vocals) are asked to craft a song based on how the beer made them feel.
With a set filled with coordinated dances, big smiles, and infectious energy, Cosmorat then take to the stage at Two Palms. "I'm so proud to be here tonight... Let’s buy a bunch of beer and have a good f*cking time," said vocalist Taylor Pollock before she introduced two new songs ("If you don’t like them don’t tell me because I have low self esteem”) – "Chekov" and "Stealing!!!". Their set also included cuts from their debut EP, Evil Adjacent, including the likes of "moon-shaped valleys", "something in the rain", and "Backseat Baby".
Some bands seem like they’ve known each other forever, and Gallus one of them. Their chemistry is undeniable; all-smiles and banter on stage as they're all kitted out in football shirts. Unluckily for the Scottish band, their set coincides with the Euros match which saw their home country defeated 5-1 by Germany. Of course, this gets mentioned multiple times throughout their set – "If you haven’t noticed we’re a Scottish bad and we’re being pumped by Germany. It’s sh*te being Scottish but it’s sh*te being in a union with you lot!" frontman Barry Dolan jests.
Part stand-up comedy, part raucous rock-show, Gallus have the crowd in the palm of their hands as Dolan tried – and partly succeeds – to get people who are stood up on the balcony to join the party downstairs. He weaves through the crowd, mounts the bar and crowd surfs, starting the first of many mosh pits. And, in the most unexpected crossover from the Glaswegians, they close their set with a rendition of "Hello" by Adele, as Dolan mounts the bar a final time, adding an element of karaoke to an already boozy and buoyant evening.
DITZ, the final band of the evening, are an exercise in professionalism. "Shoutout to our drummer who looked ill until about ten minutes ago," vocalist Cal Francis says, which draws attention to Sam Evans who is slumped over the kick drum. "He’s looking better, but he was pretty pale before." Given the fact that Francis has his back to the crowd for most of the show, you can be forgiven for thinking that Evans was merely deep in performer mode, as opposed to trying not to hurl. Despite this, he never misses a beat and plays tighter than a lot of bands who have graced the stage at Two Palms since its inception.
"In all the excitement we forgot to write a setlist, but we have a good excuse. We could do a cover of Famous Blue Rainbow by Leonard Cohen" Francis quips as the band make their way through a set which is filled with unreleased tracks, at one point jokingly asking if there are any drummers in the crowd to relieve Evans from the confines of the cramped stage and hot room. Francis takes the attention away from the stage by wandering through the crowd with a trio of people following him so that the microphone cable doesn't strangle anyone. He's all over the place – straddling a stranger who picks him up from the bar top; climbing onto the balcony; strolling towards the exit; and covering up the videographer and photographer's cameras with black electrical tape.
"If everyone takes a screen shot of their tickets we’ll do something for you. sh*t happens but we’ll do something for you," he says, as a way of seemingly making up for a performance that they weren't totally happy with. But in all honesty, they are so tight that if they hadn't pointed out the drummer's malady, we probably never would have noticed.
