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.
