HONK! Fest Weekend | October 9-11
Who ever imagined that an "activist street band" -- a group of
musicians self-described as whimsical, horn-honking purveyors of social
justice -- existed? What's more, who could have pictured that dozens
of these musical ensembles have formed in various cities across the
United States and foreign countries, all in the name of breaking down
perceived social barriers and battling the "fatalism and indifference
that has gripped the advanced industrial societies"?
For one, the minds behind our own annual HONK! Festival,
a cacophonous "revolutionary street spectacle of never-before-seen
proportions." This year's weekend-long gathering of hundreds of
musicians began last Friday night with performances across various
neighborhoods on both sides of the river, followed by a marathon series
of open-air performances in Davis Square on Saturday and a march down
Mass. Ave. to Harvard Square, where honkers joined forces with the
square's 30th annual Oktoberfest. The honktacular cherry on top of this
ear-splitting sundae was reserved for festival die-hards: musicians and
spectators poured into the Somerville Theatre for the grand finale show
on Sunday evening, the sole indoor portion of the weekend and the only
event that required ticket purchase.
Saturday's events in Davis
consisted of a sort of round-robin mash of performances in which bands
were dispersed between the square's open spaces. As the crowds bounced
from cluster to cluster and the brassy decibels mounted, it became
increasingly difficult to distinguish between spectators and
performers, with many a straggler or non-musician decked out in full
HONK! attire. The chaotic hodge-podge of festival performers and
audience members alike included circus-style environmental activists,
Brazilian Samba radicals, a bunch of mimes, some stilt-walkers, and
hordes of wandering Pacific Northwest types sporting either dreadlocks
or neon, or both. Toto, I don't believe we're at Burning Man anymore.
It
was easy to feel confused about the exact strategies that HONK!
participants aimed to employ to battle violence and oppression (both,
uh ... rampant in Somerville) amid the bustle and surges of visual
stimuli of Saturday's events in Davis Square. Need clarification? Just
read the online mission statement of a group like the Pink Puffers Brass Band, who came all the way to Davis Square from Rome, and you'll ... well, sort of just feel more confused.
From the Puffers' bio: "Why pink? Because a pink band playing black music is an hymn to
anti-racism, because the pink panther is pink (and swing, and jazz, and
like them). Because pink people are against Bush and war and stupidity
generally speaking, because pink is the colour of the flowers that will
become peaches, and because pink puffers are clinical patients affected
by emphysema (and emphysema is a disease of who works blowing, like
them with their wind-instruments)."
To each his own, we say. The Pink Puffers do
claim that their ultimate goal is to see people having fun, something
the festival seems to consistently accomplish in its own roundabout but
successful way. Passersby who were previously unaware of the fest had
little choice but to wander through the crowds in awe of its jumble;
giggly little kids filled the streets, entranced by the music and
costumes. We don't know how much injustice the HONK! Festival squashed
this weekend, but it sure did serve up a noisy, colorful plate of fun.
--Carrie Battan