Hootietastic!

Viv Ellis joined thousands and enjoyed a great night at the fourth Hanwell Hootie

Image from Paul James
(image courtesy of Paul James)

Preparing for the hootie

(Decorating the Igloo)

The fourth Hanwell Hootie took place on Saturday the weather was damp – but peoples’ spirits were anything but.

Over 80 bands performed during the afternoon – making the Hootie the biggest one-day music festival in London.

The very first Hootie was great but every year the team has strived to make  it bigger and better.

This year saw three new venues: St Mellitus church – which looked magnificent – St Mark’s School staged young acts - “Alice’s Wonderbands” and The Sandy Park at the top of St Mark’s Rd was utterly transformed by futuristic Igloo where the bands played – and outside food, drink and places to sit (rain permitting).

It’s a very hard working team, from the professionals doing the sound and lighting, to the volunteers who, when I arrived were frantically preparing the hundreds of paper lanterns that decorated everywhere.

As ever, I read up on the acts, selected which ones I wanted to see – and sighed with disappointment on realizing they were all on at the same time.

Nevertheless I saw some great bands, Though “saw” isn’t always accurate, the Village Inn was so packed I gave up, and listened to The Bible Code Sundays and Et Tu Bruce outside in the rain.

At St Marks, as well as staging young acts just starting out (Caffeine got a lot of praise) – the afternoon raised £600 for Alice Gross’s memorial fund with the charity Youth Music which will take the total to over £56,000. Alice’s mum Ros Hodgkiss, said, ” I was delighted that the Hootie dedicated a venue to young musicians and proud that it was named Alice's Wonderbands.  it was a great night all round, with a very supportive and generous crowd.  I hope this is a tradition that will continue”.

I saw so many interesting acts – ones I’d seen before; ‘The Chairs’, ‘The Men They Couldn’t Hang’ and Hanwell’s own Ukelele Group to brand new ones; ‘Jai Amore’ ‘Seafoxes’ and, I think my overall favourite, ‘Holy Moly and the Crackers’.

A brilliant event that has really put Hanwell on the map.

Viv Ellis

4th March 2016

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