Over thirty bands took to the roads of Cambridge and Somerville Sunday for the annual HONK! festival, celebrating reclaiming the streets for “horns, bikes, and feet.”
“At full power, these bands create an irresistible spectacle of creative movement and sonic self-expression directed at making the world a better place,” the HONK! organizers stated. “This is the movement we call HONK!”
The colorful, musical march from Davis Square to Harvard Square in Cambridge, arriving to join the 46th annual Oktoberfest on Sunday. Thirty-two in-person bands were scheduled to join in the revelry Sunday, organizers said, with 11 from Massachusetts and others from Seattle to New Orleans to Minneapolis.
The annual parade wrapped up days of events, beginning Thursday with a new-to-the-festival free all-day HONK! U “Conference Celebrating 20 Years of Street Music Activism.” The first-time addition included presentations, workshops and more discussing the development of HONK!, organizers said.
The festival continued Friday and Saturday in Davis Square with street music, workshops and lantern parades.
The HONK! organizers noted that though international bands were not present, virtual performances would be broadcast from Brazil, Chile, Italy, England and more during Sunday’s celebrations.
The first HONK! Festival took place in Somerville with twelve unplugged mobile street bands in 2006, organizers said, and HONK! celebrations “have popped up large and small have popped up throughout the world.”
“With boisterous fanfare, impossible to ignore, they gathered to celebrate their solidarity, with the strong belief that joyful music in public space can meet the challenging moments of our time,” HONK! organizers said.
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