REVIEW: Rally Festival

Despite the rainy circumstances, Rally Festival proved itself to be a powerhouse, alternative festival, which prioritises community and a range of sounds and music, curated so there’s never a dull moment.

London. Saturday, 24th of August. 100% chance of rain. We came, we saw, we rallied.

As I pry the curtains open, I’m welcomed by a grey sky and a glistening ground. Faithful to all forecasts, Rally 2024 is bound to be a wet one. Today, for one day only, Southwark Park will turn into a festival grounds and welcome back, for the second time, Rally, which first happened in the summer of 2023, on a day which also rained. It is the grassroots, DIY alternative to the massified All Points East Festival which has been fuelling London’s past two weekends. It’s my first time there and will be my final hurrah for the summer. 

I reach for my phone and see a text from Femi. He’s already on his way. I hurriedly wipe the sleep from my eyes. Another notification: an email from the Rally team saying they’re pushing back opening one hour. How this will affect set times is uncertain and will remain uncertain for the whole festival. On the positive side, this means there’s time for a hearty breakfast. Beans and sausages sitting warmly in my stomach, I wrap a waterproof jacket around my shoulders and head to the overground, towards Surrey Quays.

Femi’s in the Skehans tent (the poetry tent as we’ll refer to it), so that’s where I head first, fortuitously, as Adult Entertainment presented by James Massiah have just taken the stage and the rain has started to pelt down. John Joseph Holt and Fran Lock deliver their punching, fiery poems to the huddled spectators who look on dew eyed. Isaiah Hull closes the set with his habitual, stellar zeal and magical lyricism. His presence on the stage is magnetic and commandeering. “I am a thought left in the microwave too long” begins his second poem, which he groans into the microphone, his head tilted towards the tent’s ceiling, body slumped. There’s something spiritual in his performance, bordering on the self-effacing. Regardless, it’s earnest, unique and captivating. I couldn’t have asked for a better start to the day.

After a quick round of hellos to Femi’s friends (it seems that all of London has shown up for Rally), we head over to the Visionaire stage to catch Primavera Sound favourite DJ Fart in the Club playing b2b with Danielle. It’s the perfect energy we need to get into the spirit of the day. The energy is high, so is the bpm and the duo is wasting no time getting us wet Londoners to dance with back to back, danceable tracks.

We catch the rear end of ML Buch’s set on our way to secure front row places for Armand Hammer. From the back of the stage, dreamy synths weave their way to our ears. The stage is full and very still, captivated by the Danish singer and her band. I catch wisps of her auburn hair and a friend texts me that he’s seen me from the balustrade, but we’ve already headed to the Channel stage to snag a front row place for the rap duo. Armand Hammer comes out and so does the sun. billy woods smiles, a totally different demeanour from his sombre Primavera Sound set, where he asked for dimmed lights and swung his body close to the ground. ELUCID and woods are having fun and the fans are exhilarated. Several cries ring out from the audience as the pair finish each other’s verses. They close their set with a song from ELUCID’s up-coming album to much clamour from the audience.

Next is the veritable highlight of the festival, Alabaster DePlume. I spotted Alabaster during the Armand Hammer set, behind the barricade to one side, wriggling his body to the beat. His lack of self-consciousness had caught my eye; his unkemptness, the joy in his wriggling. On stage, he comes out with his saxophone and two band mates, all wrapped in keffiyehs. Once they start playing music, Alabaster leans into the microphone and begins to talk to us, addressing the audience, saying that only because he’s the one in front of the microphone, he’s not to be taken as a paragon of truth, or a figure of authority, he’s here because we’re here, each of us individually composing the group, this is a collaborative experience. At the heart of Rally festival is the idea that “rallying together is our action”. Alabaster and the band breathe life into this idea. The urgency in his voice is such that I feel emotional, few times can I recall seeing a performer blur the lines between his art and his politics so completely, so coherently. Alabaster is calling for the freeing of Palestine, for the liberation of our own minds from whatever prisons we trap them in. “You’re doing great. Thank you for being here. Living is hard” he tells us. His band and him repeat, “That’s not a carpark, that is my garden” over and over. The sky breaks open and the rain pours on us. It feels timed. The umbrellas pop up around us like mushrooms.

At the end of his set, I turn around and I see a familiar face. I do a double take. Two familiar faces. It’s my friends Pedro and Elio from Madrid. They’ve come to London especially for Rally. After a catch up over a halloumi wrap from one of the stands we hover outside of the Mill House stage, where Tash LC is playing. This stage is a crowded tent where the temperature increases by ten degrees once inside. It’s hard to discern exactly how the hour that the festival has been pushed back has affected the set times. There’s a bit of confusion in the air about who and where the artists are playing. However, after a warm boogie to a remix of Rosalía and Björk’s musical collaboration ‘Oral’, we head deeper into the park, where darkness has started to encroach and the gremlins are coming out of the woodworks. The trees are glowing with fluorescent lights. Ogazón and Christian AB are taking us into the night with high energy, melodic techno.

On our way to catch Mount Kimbie’s closing set at the Channel stage, we catch some of Two Shell’s magnetic set at the raviest stage of the festival, which has transformed from ML Buch’s synthy dreamscape into a strobing, throbbing warehouse. The hooded figures behind the booth are winding the crowd up and I see some of the best dancing of the evening there and then. 

We rejoin Femi at the front row for the final concert of the festival, a live Mount Kimbie set infused with nostalgia as the London band muse on their beginnings in South London. Elio and Pedro beside me are beside themselves with excitement and when the mosh pits start (yes) they toy with the idea coyly, shoving people here and there. Mount Kimbie leave us on a high, playing well loved tracks with King Krule’s oceanic vocals and before we know it we’re petering out of Southwark Park. Femi, his friend Peace and I trundle to the overground and just before getting on our train, we spot Alabaster in a corner with a friend. We go up to him and I breathlessly tell him how inspired I’d felt. “Thank you for doing what you do,” I tell him. He ropes me in for a huge hug. “Thank you for being you. Don’t miss your train.”

by Arcadia Molinas