Festival Review: ALT-LDN - August 2021
With controversy since it was announced, Alt-Ldn is London’s newest festival featuring a unique mixture of Alt-Rap and Rock acts. From acts dropping out because of travel restrictions to rumours of the whole festival being the UK equivalent of Fyre Festival; we were interested to see what was actually going to happen!
A cloudy cast over day in the capital did not give us good vibes walking through the gates of Alt-Ldn but those fears were quickly drained away as the first few acts came on stage. Starting with the punk duo Bob Vylan who proceeded to parade around the stage in front of a huge Great Britain flag plastered across the stage. It didn't take long before Bob had gotten bored of the stage and decided the middle of a music hungry crowd was a better place to play their chaotic songs; all in all a crazy but perfect way to start the day off!
Keeping up the energy the fabulously evil Dana Dentata creeped on stage donning a terrifying mask and comically big claws, her eclectic mix of rap and industrial sounding electronics got the crowd jumping; draped in a full latex catsuit and holding everything from a whip to a two headed baby Dana Dentata definitely brought the vibe Alt-Ldn were attempting.
Wargasm were the next to take the mantle, their punk rock attitude and moshpit-centric music seemed to spark the interest of the festival goers, but their command of the stage was a slight drop off from today's first two acts. Nevertheless Wargasm gave it everything they had, frontwoman Milkie screeching down the mic like a Banshee whilst locking eyes with the front row as if she was about to fight everyone there!
The rapper Clever was a name we were less familiar with and even though he tried to get the crowd hyped and moving, the sound mixing of his set was disastrous and his attempt at a heavier Post Malone vibe of songs did not sit as well with the crowd as his fellow acts.
A quick excursion over to the 2nd of Alt-Ldn’s stages saw soundcloud-era rapper SmokePurpp jump out and almost set the tent ablaze; in some case literally with the amount of flame jets and sparklers he had going off mid set; a compilation mix of his big hits saw the audience take somewhat well to the american!
So far the scheduling of the acts had been extremely unorganised, as we mentioned before a few of the biggest acts had already dropped out and the ones that were left had to deal with time slots running over by 10-15minutes at a time; one of those acts who ended up going on later than expected was Lil Yachty. It was either the grey skies and drizzle of rain or the lack of organization from the festival but Yachty slogged through his 40 minute set with a look of distaste on his face for the majority of the show; he did try to liven things up but at this point a lot of the crowd were not feeling it; he even remarked “Y’all look sleepy!”.
As we moved on into the evening, The Kid LAROI gave the Alt-Ldn mainstage a go; running up and down the catwalk sunglasses constantly on, his upbeat pop heavy set did turn some frowns upside down surprisingly. His big hits ‘Stay’ and ‘Without You’ were some highlights of the set but were slightly offset by Laroi’s attempt at audience participation when he brought a fan on stage to sing one of his songs, which it become very apparent this ‘fan’ did not know; so proceeded to stand awkwardly behind Laroi filming him like a parent at a school play!
One of the heaviest acts on the line-up was Brighton metalcore band Architects who attempted to play a good show (which it was don’t get it wrong) but a huge part of the crowd were now only here for headliner Playboi Carti. Frontman Sam Carter tried to level with the avid Carti fans by saying “we don’t think we’re the best shit up here, we’re just playing our song”, Architects set consisted of a large number of songs from their newest album; ‘Black Lungs’ and ‘Discourse is Dead’ hitting a chord with the rock fans still scattered amongst the drones of Carti addicts.
With a lot of the other popular acts like Machine Gun Kelly, Chase Atlantic, Ski Mask and Princess Nokia dropping out, Playboi Carti was the only one left to see for 80% of the audience. Sprinting to the end of the catwalk in gigantic fur boots, ski mask and bedazzled sunglasses Carti instantly brought the energy and the crowd lost their minds; this continued for about 10 minutes more before it became all too real how similar the rest of his set was becoming. Either not rapping at all and just standing looking over the sea of londoners or banshee screaming into the mic periodically; Carti’s set became very stale very quickly, thankfully with only having a 45 minute set we didn’t have to suffer for much longer.
As the last fireworks went off over Clapham Common and the thousands of rap and rock fans filed out of the arena, all that was left was the feeling of what this festival could have been! With how extremely disorganised everything had been, the treatment of fans regarding tickets and withholding vital information right up till days before; Alt-Ldn very much missed the mark on this one. As much as they would love to blame everything on the pandemic, Alt-Ldn did not live up to what was promised; yes there were some musical highlights but it was greatly overshadowed by everything else and it surely won't be forgotten quickly.
Words by Joe Dick