A Woolworths pick ’n’ mix of modern pop, late-Nineties chart-botherers, and the objectively-awful-but-who-cares, Mighty Hoopla is London’s most anarchic music festival; a queer, two-day event steeped in irony, nostalgia and heartfelt love. It’s also a festival at its best when the camp is – as all good camp should be – completely unintentional. Never is this truer than when an exasperated Rita Ora has to fill time in her set (her sound equipment overheated) by wading into the crowd and attempting duets with pitchy homosexual after pitchy homosexual. It’s the same kind of valiant struggle that powered the first brick at Stonewall.
Rumours of mud and sodden grass – relics of a different event at Brockwell Park a week earlier – almost blighted the festival, with the Saturday Hoopla crowd staggering around in practical but deeply un-chic wellington boots. Grey skies add to a sense of slight panic over the proceedings. That said, performers are on top form, from scuzzy-pop queen Slayyyter making up for a lack of frills or dancers through sheer stage presence alone, to headliner Nelly Furtado reminding the crowd of the vast number of bangers she has to her name.
A highlight across both days is the Real Housewives of New York star Countess Luann, who has parlayed reality-show fame into a semi-successful cabaret career made up of rinky-dink electropop originals about diamonds and ex-husbands. Dressed in a bedazzled gown and sounding like a carton of cigarettes, she is a funny, sweet presence – and seemingly choked up by the crowd singing along with her.
Sunday is a less anxious affair, many dumping wellies for less restrictive footwear. There’s a lovely reunion between Eternal alumni Louise and Kéllé Bryan during the former’s set, as well as a joyous rendition of All Saints’ “Pure Shores” by the group’s Shaznay Lewis during her solo performance. For audiences eager for nods to queer history beyond episodes of Top of the Pops from 1996, there is trans cultural icon and pioneer Amanda Lepore – who sweetly shouts out to “the freaks” during her performance. Ora, once her tech issues are sorted, is a likeable, consummate pro who navigates the crowd with ease and rattles through her biggest hits. Headliner Jessie Ware, a dab hand when it comes to feather boas and vocal runs, sends the day out on a high.
But arguably the biggest draw here, if only out of curiosity, is JoJo Siwa, the 21-year-old TV personality made famous on the unhinged “little girls being perpetually yelled at” US reality show Dance Moms. Now she sings sapphic pop while dressed in multicoloured leather, her face pancaked in stage makeup that can best be described as “Gene Simmons meets rodeo clown”. Introduced as “the mother of gay pop” – a reference to her recent claim that she, um, “invented gay pop” – Siwa spends what feels like half her allotted time talking about her haters and her one-time army of 12-year-old fans. It’s a bit of a calamity, but Siwa’s energy – a mix of uber-precise choreography and haphazard chaos – fits the brief here at Hoopla.
