A one-line review of every artist I saw at Wide Awake 2025

This series is probably as much for my benefit as yours. I go to a lot of gigs and it is nice to have a way to remember them all. Maybe your interest will be piqued by one of the reviews. Maybe you’ll scroll straight past. Maybe you’ll unsubscribe thinking what did I see in this blog in the first place? You can find all of my one-line gig reviews here.

I went to the Wide Awake festival and saw so much stuff that it made sense to make a separate post about it …

RIP Magic, Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park, 23 May – Always a tough gig opening a festival to virtually nobody but they did a decent job with Death in Vegas/90s grubby trip-hop vibes.

[RIP Magic at Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park]

Yuuf, Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park, 23 May – Instrumental yacht rock, I enjoyed it but kept expecting them to break into Fleetwood Mac’s Albatross.

[Yuuf at Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park]

Acopia, Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park, 23 May – I genuinely have no idea how to pronounce the name but really like the way they sound – reminds me of Dot Allison with a smattering of Cocteau Twins.

[Acopia at Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park]

Gaye Su Akyol, Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park, 23 May – Infectious Turkish vocals and rhythms and she sometimes gets behind the kit to make it a two drummer line-up.

[Gaye Su Akyol at Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park]

Hello Mary, Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park, 23 May – One of the reasons I like Wide Awake sooooooo much is it always throws up a couple of bands I’d never been aware of who then become people I want to see live again. That happened with this lot who play, urm, folkish-prog-metal with a flying-V guitar and female harmony vocals?

[Hello Mary at Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park]

Sextile, Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park, 23 May – Electronic sex music for sexy electronic people. Plus me. They had one moment where I thought they had sung “have you ever washed that kettle out?” which suddenly made me worry about the state of my kettle.

[Sextile at Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park]

Gurriers, Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park, 23 May – Angry fucking crowd-surfing-inspiring noise goblins – great energy and deserved to be on a bigger stage

Warmduscher, Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park, 23 May – One of those bands that I never think to put on their records but I’ve seen them a couple of times at festivals or all-dayers and it is always a blast.

[Warmduscher at Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park]

[Unexpected Jeremy Corbyn interlude]

NADINE FUCKIN’ SHAH, Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park, 23 May – Nadine fuckin’ Shah is a Nadine fuckin’ star. Honestly my favourite new solo artist of the last decade. Such an incredible performer live and everything is out on her sleeve.

[Nadine Shah at Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park]

Bdrmm, Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park, 23 May – I’ve seen them a couple of times before but didn’t remember them being this good. Also enjoyed them having a setlist snafu to which one of them said “PRS aren’t going to be happy” which was beyond niche.

English Teacher, Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park, 23 May – I liked a couple of their tracks but had mentally pigeon-holed them alongside Dry Cleaning as having a mumbling half-spoken vocalist, but actually Lily has an amazing voice and I need to check them out more.

[English Teacher at Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park]

Sprints, Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park, 23 May – I had been really looking forward to see them as I rate them very highly but I’d got to the bit of the afternoon where hanging around with mates was more important than the bands, and so I didn’t give them the attention they deserved. I will catch them next time they are in London.

[Sprints at Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park]

Cmat, Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park, 23 May – A classic of the genre “not my sort of thing, but I could see why everybody else was enjoying it” – great stage presence.

My day sort of unravelled at that point – the incident notes mention Red Stripe and cocktails – so I managed to catch about a whole twenty seconds of Psychedelic Porn Crumpets and then lost the location of all my friends, and wound up watching …

Patriarchy, Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park, 23 May – Another cracking discovery, with a wild vocalist and guitarist, and a guy doing drums and electronics, with kink vibes. A fantastic end to the night.

[Patriarchy at Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park]

I also have photos of another band, and I cannot for the life of me work out who it was, which kind of suggests the extent to which things unravelled. Anyway I left early and missed Peaches and Daniel Avery who were on my list of things to see, but had a great time. Truly one of my favourite fixtures in the calendar.

Find all of my one-line gig reviews here.