The wait was finally over this weekend as 2500 ascended onto Blackheath Common for the long anticipated 'OnBlackheath' Festival.

Walking over the open and vastly spacious Blackheath, it’s surprising that you are in fact in London, edging closer to the site the backdrop of the London Skyline comes into view as a stunning reminder, but the coming together of OnBlackheath hasn't all been plain sailing. Local politics, date changes and discrepancies have pushed this festival back over the last three years, but finally (and much to our delight also) the organisers got their weekend of Food and Music!

With Michelin Star chefs donning The Food Stage for live food demonstrations using the latest kitchen technology with a little help from Neff, award winning musicians and performers such as Massive Attack and the incredible Grace Jones, a pretty impressive spread of both food and entertainment was laid out for the lucky audience. They were not disappointed. And locals need not be concerned over the speculated antisocial behaviour the festival may have brought, with sponsorship from the likes of John Lewis, On Blackheath was a family affair.

With a large portion of the site dedicated to music education, creative games and sports. There was an abundance of activities for the younger attendees to be getting stuck into, including mass hula hooping classes, plate spinning, face painting, tight rope walking to the sound of nursery rhymes…the reggae versions! 

Also on offer potato sack racing in the sports day picket fence patch. Even the smaller kids had a sandpit area with mini deck chairs hosted by Vita CoCo. Touch and play handmade installations created with domestic items were also on offer for kids to discover their very own musical sound.

For the slightly older (and way cooler) young adults The Urban Arts Experience Bus pulled up for the weekend giving teens an opportunity to learn how to street dance, get stuck into some graffiti art, attend positive rap classes, and even create a professional sound track. There was a real up beat, friendly vibe around the bus. Urban Arts Experience are all about stripping Hip Hop of its false negative reputation and instead, encouraging young people to get in touch with their own creativity with added confidence and character building.

Adjacent to the children's area sat the Movember Sessions Bus sponsored by Gillette, for parents to hang out in. The Movember Foundation charity run events to raise awareness about Men’s Health issues, such as prostate cancer and other male cancers. Men can grow facial hair over the period of November collecting donations and raising money for the cause. So the Movember bus had its very own old school barber shop complete with reclining chair sink and barber pole and a queue of gentlemen awaiting their turn for their clean cut shave.

On the upper deck a large chill out area and its resident DJ throwing some tune’s out the opened winder of the top deck. If shavings not your thing help yourself to a paddle for the ping pong table or smash out some beats on the drum kit or if this all proves far too much exertion there’s always a beer to be had from local Meantime Brewing Company. Plenty of freebies were handed out during the day from Vita Coca, One Water , Urban Fruits, Bear healthy snacks and Metcalf's popcorn keeping punters happy.. But we are also reminded of the importance of food not going to waste, also partners to the festival were The Trussell Trust.

The Trussell Trust runs a network of 400 UK food banks, including Lewisham and Greenwich nearby, which give emergency food and support to local people in crisis.

Young Fathers opened the Main Stage on Saturday turning heads with their fierce presence. Their eerie drum beats and helicopter sounds pulled in an intrigued audience. The Three strong front men all with different backgrounds in life utilise these differences to produce an incredibly diverse and new hip hop sound. The fourth member of the group who sits behind them on drums is their driving force, hammering home their message.

The Giles Peterson World Stage although packed was a very chilled out corner of the festival. Hosting streams of talent for us including Anuska, Badbadnotgood and Hiatus Kaiyote. There was also a separate stage solely for DJs to spread out on. The space, strategically planned, proved very accommodating for all that occupied it, and added to quality viewing.

The Food Village featuring Gizzi Erskine’s Chefs Club saw demos from Top Chefs guiding you through the do’s and don'ts of cooking fabulous food. After the demo you can opt to sit down for a full on dining experience, sampling the mouth watering food too! Gizzi’s menu for the day – Starter of Hot splash sashimi Followed by a main of Korean butter milk fried chicken or Pork belly Bo San. Serious foodies would have had front row seats for Jack Stein (Son of Rick Stein).

Grocery shopping was also available with a local produce market with traders selling Organic and Fair trade produce. And what a collection of food vendors! Mac and Cheese, Mexican, Chicago Rib Shack, Gaucho BBQ, Duck Wraps and Veggie Indian to name a few. Craft Cocktail were knocking up 100% natural cocktails while Pearl & Grove baking up a storm with their cakes.

The soulful skills of Aloe Blacc made for a bit of a treat on a sunny Saturday afternoon, with the smoothest of the smooth lazy Sax and Trumpet it would be a huge shock if this man said Stevie Wonder wasn’t one of his idols. Aloe opened up to the crowd and shared a moving sentiment behind “Soldier in the City” a song written for all city people fighting their way through life to conquer bad circumstance. Aloe encouraged the crowd to join in on spreading love and support and requested everyone to hug the person next to them. One security guy got taken by surprise and was bundled with hugs by happy strangers. Job done.

Finishing off with the ever popular Avicci collaboration “So wake me up when it’s all over” Aloe reminded the audience of his favourite childhood American show ‘Soultrain’ and the crowd got stuck in recreating their own Soul train facing each other from main stage to sound stage. There wasn’t a glum face to be seen on the whole site after this feel good set.

Grace Jones owns a stage like no other. Making her entrance on a platform raised above the stage, Grace has a body of what seems physically impossible, even more so on stage. Telling the crowd she hates the cold she soldiers on through her set with costume changes after every track, comically talking to the crowd through her microphone whilst changing backstage. 

Stripping off her Black Mac teamed with Scorpion pincer headpiece she whips into a black leotard with what appears to be an Indian headdress but instead of feathers are laser cut mirrors catching strobes of light illuminating her face as she strides across the stage demanding to be acknowledged, yet she couldn't take herself less seriously, so confident in her own skin and care free Grace confesses to the audience mid song "you know I can’t always reach those high notes" and the crowd just loves her even more for her effortlessly cool purring. 

What's Grace Jones got to prove to anyone? Belting out "Pull Up to the Bumper Baby" spinning around and smacking her rear to a roaring audience, confetti bombs explode to her hula hooping her way through Slave to the Rhythm, a 10 minute song!

Grace, leaving just as big as she came on dons a Mirror reflecting bowler hat. One single spot light shoots down onto her leaving an array of beams exploding 360 degrees around her bringing her powerful performance to an end.

Massive Attack are, and always will be in a league of their own. With their prominent baselines, addictive streams of rhythm and hypnotic vocals you don't seem to have any choice in getting sucked into their trance like display, with reprinted military reports, quotes from politicians and former and current presidents, cutting to vast quantities of brand logos flashing violently across the screens behind them, there were cult like undertones to this psychedelic performance. 

Starting with their new gripping tracks from Blue Lines, there wasn't a chance in hell this was going to be a 'best of' kind of show, although MA did reward us with throwing in Angel and Teardrop in a unique live version to avoid an exact copy of the original soundtrack, the perfect way to end an evening winding down to laid back chilled electronic perfection from the masters.

Review and some photos: Cat Ryan