This weekend’s 19th annual three-day Honk! Festival drew thousands to Somerville on Friday and Saturday, with bands playing around Davis Square into Saturday night, then down into Cambridge on Sunday for a parade to Oktoberfest in Harvard Square. The festival features activist street bands from across the United States – and, this year, one from Brazil – participating in a musical celebration and left-leaning political enlightenment. Photos are by Taylor Coester unless marked otherwise.

Organizers estimated attendance of well over 10,000 for the weekend of Honk! events in Somerville with no reports of disruptions around the upcoming presidential election or ongoing violence in the Middle East, said Mary Curtin, a spokesperson for the event. (The figure doesn’t include Oktoberfest, which reportedly drawn tens of thousands more to Cambridge in years past.)

A protest Sunday on Storrow Drive in Boston did have an effect, Curtin said: It delayed an ambulance needed by a parade participant. “A stilt dancer – on really high stilts – who was part of my band’s parading posse tripped and fell to the ground, wiping out right in the park by Grendel’s where all paraders finished up. And it took quite a while for the ambulance to arrive to take him to the emergency room,” Curtin said Monday, reflecting on the previous weekend. “Crazy day in the Boston area.”

Noam, 11, waves a flag that says “revolt” as the band Rude Mechanical Orchestra from New York City plays behind them. The band opened with the song “Bella Ciao,” an Italian song largely known for its message of resistance and anti-fascism. Many of the activist bands played and sang this song throughout the day.
Members of Babadan Banda de Rua from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, play drums during the opening ceremony at Honk!
Anna Purnell, a member of the Forward! Marching Band from Madison, Wisconsin, dances to music performed by the Good Trouble Brass Band during opening ceremonies in Seven Hills Park.
Some of the attendees watching the New Orleans Musicians 4 Palestine band wore “Honk! for a Free Palestine” T-shirts – a show of political sentiment at an event coming two days before the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas Attacks on Israel.
Beau Tremblay, a member of School of Honk from Somerville, eats lunch at Honk! on Saturday, his first year performing in the festival.
Chris Ortega lounges in a lawn chair while listening to The Party Band from Lowell play Saturday. Ortega came to hear his daughter, a saxophonist in the band.
Brian Gannon hugs his daughters Aviva, 7, and Mila Fay, 9, as they get “cured” by a sousaphone duet at Honk! on. Sol Engmann, left, and Cathy Inouye, right, are part of the group called Topping from the Bottom and offered sonic healings to attendees at the festival.
Gia Davis laughs as she gets “cured” by the Topping from the Bottom sousaphone team at Honk!.
The Honk! parade heads down Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge to Harvard Square on Sunday so bands can play as part of Oktoberfest. (Photo: Marc Levy)

This post was updated Oct. 8, 2024, with quotes from Mary Curtin, a Honk! spokesperson.

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