Ben Drew talks about his manor, Forest Gate, and how it has shaped him into the person he is today. Hackney Weekend Main content. About Hackney Weekend Discover the UK's biggest free ticketed music event - this year on a massive scale to celebrate Reading this on mobile? Click here to view video. Local girl Leona Lewis opened the main stage on Saturday and confirmed that she may be irredeemably bland but she sure can sing. Rizzle Kicks ' infectious wholesome rap charmed more than Example's aerobic rave-pop, while the inexplicably popular Ed Sheeran spent much of his set giving the crowd extremely well-spoken singing lessons.
The ubiquitous will. Featuring over acts, performing across six stages, the audience was spoilt for choice. Walking into the festival was reminiscent of entering Notting Hill Carnival — whistles galore being sold on the street, homemade rum punch for sale and smoke billowing from chicken barbequed under tarpaulins. Hundreds crammed into the In New Music We Trust INMWT tent for their late afternoon performance, with vocalist John Newman — the raspy-voiced singer on their aforementioned hit — and a trio of scantily-clad, glittery backing singers and a full brass band augmenting the already high-octane performance.
The Maccabees played the same stage: bashing out their indie-rock hits — old and new — and were followed by north-London born Michael Kiwanuka with his acoustic soul. There were arms flailing in the air and plenty of people sitting on shoulders to get a better view, in true festival style. On Saturday the rain held out all day but then started to fall as Jay-Z took to the stage. The magnitude of his performance, however, with guest appearances from MIA, Kanye West and Rihanna, entirely negated poor weather.
Most festivals boast large screens either side of their main stages. Here, there are screens outside the tents too, ensuring the overspill of fans doesn't miss out — a civilised novelty befitting a large media organisation.
The idea to site 's Weekender in Hackney emerged from a sense that local young people felt left out of the Olympics. Complaining that taxpayers' money should not be spent on a free festival in times of austerity, he went on to say: "If the BBC is giving something out for free, then we can't compete.
It's really pissed me off. Cooper hit back: "We're going into an area that I don't think any commercial operator would have gone into after the unrest of last year. That is the job of the BBC. Encouragingly, though, the station has not just parachuted in a festival. For the past month, Radio 1 has been running an academy of workshops, masterclasses and talks in Hackney's new cinema, where east London success stories — Lewis, Plan B, Dizzee Rascal and Dragon's Den alumnus Levi Roots, among others — have been working with local young creatives in an effort to equip them with skills to confound society's expectations of riot-stricken youth.
Their T-shirt designs are on sale alongside the official merchandise. The Heatwave — a soundsystem playing bashment, a variant on dancehall reggae — perform an afternoon set near the avenue of food outlets. And although the BBC logo is ever-present — you can even climb up on a giant B or C cube and have your picture taken — there are little semi-official enclaves as you might find at Glastonbury.
The young and the even younger are out in force. Jenny, 26, and Kate, 25, are lolloping across the field towards Example's set on the main stage.
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