David Emery Online

Out East

20 October 2008

This is a little bit late – blame the much needed holiday I’ve just taken – but a couple of weeks ago was the inaugural Concrete and Glass festival, which took place in a range of venues across East London.

It was a resounding success – no mean feat for a festival in its first year, it must be said. Unlike most similar events – think SXSW, Great Escape and Camden Crawl – as well as the music component there’s the art side as well, with a whole host of galleries and artist participating. I had a mild sense of trepidation about the art contingent – was it going to be poncy, bad art? – but what I saw was really quite impressive, especially the main ‘Heart of Glass’ show in Shoreditch Town Hall basement which contained a whole variety of delights.

However, that’s not to say that the music side was in anyway inferior – it was definitely the best ‘city’ festival line-up I’ve seen this year, packing an extremely varied collection of musicians. From people you’ve not heard of (but worth hearing) to something utterly odd (but extremely enjoyable) finishing with something you already love it pretty much had everything you’d want. That’s The Big Pink (electro-y, prog-y brilliance), Kimmo Pohjonen (who used live farm equipment in his performance, including farmers…) and of course TV On The Radio, respectively.

Roll on next year…

Below is a selection of photos from the two days – enjoy:

See more on Flickr.