A grooving South Facing festival have gauged everything just right

South Facing Festival 2021

Thursday 5th to Tuesday 31st August 2021
Crystal Palace Bowl, Crystal Palace Park, Anerley Hill, London, SE18 2BA, England MAP
early bird from £35 per show

Saturday 20th August 2021

It's clear that South Facing festival have found their groove with this brit-pop/indie Supergrass day. A busy crowd has descended upon South London despite the dubious conflicting weather of sun and damp, and everyone seems determined to have a good time; maybe because it's friday? Or maybe because we still see gigs and festivals as a novelty!

The Cribs: South Facing Festival 2021

The Cribs, come onstage earlier than announced and dive straight into their arresting indie-rock like it's their last ever concert. Opening with Running Into You and powering through fifteen numbers across their varied albums, the Jarman brothers certainly get Crystal Palace in the mood for some britpop. As some form of mystical synergy, the band even dedicate song Screaming In Surburbia to one of their pals, who leant them a Supergrass CD. Ah, that's nice.

Supergrass: South Facing Festival 2021

On come Supergrass, and they are very much up for headlining gigs again. There's a certain throwback feel to the air as hangers on Daisy Lowe and Johnny Borrell can be seen floating through the crowd, watching their indie-mates. Gaz Coombes, wearing what looks like a Trilby, burst on to I Like To Know and proceeds to give the Bowl crowd a delightful greatest hits set - focusing both on albums I Should Coco and In It For The Money. Many of the audience are dancing and singing every word, and it feels like the centre of the universe for a Friday night. They even play overyplayed staple Alright early, so that they can enjoy themselves with proper encores of Caught By The Fuzz and Strange Ones. It was today that the Bowl felt like it has properly established itself on the music venue scene again.

South Facing Festival seems to have gauged everything just right - the size of the arena feels cozy and intimate, and the bars and toilets seem ample, not to mention the popular acts that seem to have judged the right local appeal.

Monday 22nd August 2021

Mike Skinner had already sold out the Saturday, and so this Sunday gig was due to popular demand and it's clear that there's huge appetite for Skinner's ascerbic, sarcastic The Streets moniker like he's never gone away. He's back in South London, and doing two consecutive weekend nights.

Greentea Peng: South Facing Festival 2021

Earlier, Greentea Peng, who one feels lazy describing as "mystical", brought the chill-vibes to the Sunday crowd, running through tracks from her great debut album Man-Made and lulling everyone into a false sense of relaxed security, considering who was headlining after her. She would later join Skinner on stage.

As for Skinner, he's preaching to the masses, and when he shakes a bottle of sparkling and sprays it over everyone, you forget that this isn't a victory parade after a long grand prix. It would be remiss to not mention the crowd longing for number one hit Dry Your Eyes, although it's Original Pirate Material that gets a huge airing in this tight headline set. Skinner is just as angry as ever, with a wink allthesame, and he demonstrates acrobatics of jumping off podiums and flirting with diving into the Crystal Palace moat. The moat is such a quirky oddity for a gig venue that no headliner fails to mention it. There's opera and Max Richter still to come for the Bowl, and we can't wait already for next year's lineup.

The Streets: South Facing Festival 2021

Saturday 28th August 2021

Proving that the new, inventive South Facing Festival caters for all of the local clientele, prominent post-minimalist composer Max Richter brings his ensemble to Crystal Palace to present two movements. VOICES, his acclaimed album, and INFRA, a new work focusing on the London 7/7 terror attacks.

Supporting Richter was the graceful Lucinda Chua, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist and certainly on the rise, using her Cello and angelic aura to perfectly create the right ambiance for the evening's proceedings. The beauty of Chua's soundscapes filled the stage even if she was just a solitary figure. An interesting dichotomy considering The Streets, with all the rage and arresting aggression, headlined this stage just a week ago.

The "seating" at this concert was different to the other South Facing festival events, in that there were three pricing sections governed by coloured wrist band. Attendees were encouraged to "bring a blanket" and sit down - and even those who sat in the "cheap seats" had a great view. The only concern, and this may have been due to the more polite, elegant atmosphere of the evening, was the queuing to use the bars and food stalls. There were lines of people snaking around the festival; odd considering this wasn't occurring at the other events. Wait times for drinks were long, but grumbles were low.

When Max Richter delivered his first set, his popular album Voices, you could hear a pin-drop as the crowd relaxed into the (surprisingly cold) Crystal Palace evening and allowed the composer's work to envelope them. It's lazy to use words such as beautiful and sublime, but you could often overhear these in conversation throughout the evening. By the time the second set of Infra, complete with choral voices in support, resumed after the interval, the Richter fans didn't mind that he wasn't playing anything from The Leftovers; his popularity so big that this event sold out very quickly.

The shivery night and the long queues didn't deter anyone from feeling fortunate to attend such a majestic evening, and there was a huge overriding sense of calm when Richter and his ensemble took their final bows and exited stage. The crowd satisfied and quietly dispersing South Facing festival; clearly a triumph against the odds of an awful summer and a raging pandemic.

Back to part one >>>>

review by: Raph Pour-Hashemi