Days Out: Naked City Festival, Beckenham Place Park
BY JAMES TWOMEY
A one-day festival which boasts some of the best talent South London has to offer will take place this Saturday.
Naked City Festival, set to take place tomorrow in Beckenham Place Park, will present some of the top jazz musicians from South London on a day which aims to celebrate talent from the capital.
“Naked City is a brand new music festival for London; a celebration of how London makes us feel,” said the organisers, who have pulled in a range of top performers for the day-long party.
Big jazz artists like Kamaal Williams, Moses Boyd, Henry Wu, Ezra Collective and Laura Misch are just a few of the headline acts to make South London proud.
There is an opportunity to make a big day of it as well, with the newly regenerated Beckenham Place Park as the surroundings.
You can take a dip in the new swimming lake before or after seeing some music, or stroll through the new wet woodlands to see the park’s new biodiversity.
If you bring the kids with you, you can take them to the new skate park or playground.
The organisers added: “It’s a beautiful park close to the heart of the South London scene.
For years it’s been a golf course but they’ve recently converted it into a public park with a wild swimming lake with the help of lottery funding.
“When we first visited the site we were taken aback at how beautiful it was. Undulating lawns, ancient woodland – it just doesn’t feel like you’re in London.
“We wanted to bring the feeling of a boutique countryside festival to London and we felt we could really do that in Beckenham Place Park.
“With a wide roster of talent, bending and blending genres such as jazz, house, afro, dub and disco, the festival draws on the city’s central nervous system of musical influences to create a day-long party with a truly London soul.
“Deliberately looking away from the usual headliners dominating the festival scene, the line-up focuses on home-grown talent, with a particular emphasis on acts that cut their teeth in the boiling South London musical scene.
“Ezra Collective, one of the pioneers of the UK’s new wave jazz scene, will play a main stage set as well as Moses Boyd Exodus.
“Closing the festival is the inimitable Neneh Cherry, fresh off the back of her critically acclaimed 2018 album Broken Politics.
“From further afield, acts like Ata Kak; Afriquoi make for one of the London’s most exciting festival bills.
“It’s a wonderful time to be a Londoner. There is so much great music coming out of South London at the moment.
“The influence of so many different musical cultures can be heard in the new British jazz scene. It’s a beautifully diverse and positive scene. There are eight million stories in this city. Let’s celebrate their sound.”
Further details and tickets can be found at https://nakedcityfestival.com/
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Hi, just a few corrections to your article. People attending the festival could not take a dip in the new swimming lake, neither before or after seeing some music, firstly because due to safety concerns the lake had been fenced off, secondly because it was never going to be available to the public attending the festival. The new wetlands are, so far, no more than a tangle of branches with some puddles of stagnant water, if that. The biodiversity totally absent as the heavy machinery and trucks used in the re-development of the park has scared away even the old biodiversity. There is no skate park. The playground is there, but suitable only for very small children.
Apparently, when they first visited the site, the organisers were taken aback by how beautiful it was. WAS being the operative word, as the re-development took care of that.