The 19th annual HONK! Festival took place from Oct. 4 to 6, drawing dozens of activist street bands and hundreds of attendees to Davis Square in Somerville to dance, draw, make crafts and celebrate the history of activist music in Boston. Bands played from noon to 9 p.m. Oct. 5, with schedules varying over the weekend.
Thirty-three bands played during the festival, with several ensembles having traveled from cities as far as New Orleans, Austin, Olympia, Washington, and even Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Some bands played in extravagant sequined costumes, while others wore color-coordinated outfits or keffiyehs in support of the pro-Palestinian cause. Some troupe members carried banners or painted their tuba covers to advertise their band names.
Each ensemble had a band leader keeping a consistent tempo and marking changes in the setlist. There were drummers with complex chest rigs, trumpet and trombone players holding down the melody, tuba and upright bass players marking the tempo and all manner of sousaphones, cornets and french horns in between. Some bands led chants with megaphones between songs, or made speeches about the festival or their band’s history.
Festival-goers danced in front of their favorite bands, ranging from couples doing the Lindy Hop, to solo dancers doing the Charleston and toddlers running around in circles. There were several activities for attendees to peruse as they walked around Davis Square, including climate-awareness crafts from an Extinction Rebellion booth and a pro-Palestinian poster-making table staffed by young volunteers and students. The HONK! Festival has always drawn leftist bands and progressive crowds, and the event is described as a “revolutionary street spectacle of never-before-seen proportions” on the festival’s website.
The bands played down side streets and on the grassy field outside Davis Square Station, rotating around the neighborhood according to a predetermined schedule. Metal barriers blocked off some of the streets going through the intersection to make them safe for pedestrians. Simultaneously, choruses of honking car horns mingled with the brassy strains of big band music as crowds of festival-goers flooded the crosswalks.
