The Harrison All Day Folk Festival

The folk music festival that made The Harrison famous is back where it belongs. For over a decade The Harrison in King’s Cross has hosted its much loved all day folk festivals, twice yearly gatherings that became some of the most vibrant folk events in London, and this autumn the tradition continues under our own roof, with free live music across two floors from early afternoon until late. If you are looking for free live music in London, an all day folk festival in the heart of King’s Cross takes some beating. Here’s who’s playing.

Gnawa Blues All Stars
Led by Simo Lagnawi, an ambassador of Gnawa culture in the UK, the Gnawa Blues All Stars play the sacred trance music of Morocco, fusing it with sounds from across West Africa and beyond. Lagnawi has performed everywhere from Glastonbury to Latitude and featured on the BBC World Service and CNN, and the band’s hypnotic grooves are guaranteed to get the room moving.

Jaz Delorean
Frontman of the European touring band Tankus, Jaz Delorean is a London based singer whose solo piano songs draw on bar room players of the Old West, the melodies of his Cypriot ancestry and stories from growing up around a travelling funfair. Expect tender, wry songcraft with undertones of New Orleans jazz and blues.

Homeward Bound Sea Shanty Singalong
This one is all about you. Homeward Bound runs rousing a cappella folk and sea shanty sessions where the audience become the sailors, singing and bonding together, and no good voice is required, only gumption and a good sense of humour. Warm up those lungs.

Whiskey Moon Face
Built around double bass, accordion and clarinet, and led by the superb vocals and hallucinatory lyrics of Louisa Jones, Whiskey Moon Face blend Eastern European and klezmer traditions with old time New Orleans jazz and chamber folk. There is simply no one in the UK making music like them, and they are longstanding festival favourites here.

Joe Wilkes
South London singer songwriter Joe Wilkes writes snappy modern folk songs coupled with intense finger picking, a style that won admirers in folk legends Bert Jansch and Davy Graham. His latest album, Hope In My Chest, Fire In My Heart, released in early 2026, pays tribute to the folk tradition while pushing it somewhere new.

Something Sleeps
London dream folk band Something Sleeps, featuring songwriters Fiona Fey and Rey Yusuf, are known for their vocal harmonies, emotionally provocative lyrics and socially conscious original material, continuing the tradition of using folk song to question the status quo. They have played Sidmouth Folk Week and opened for Martin and Eliza Carthy.

Adam Beattie
Scottish singer songwriter and guitarist Adam Beattie is a celebrated figure on the London scene with five albums of original songs. His roots in Scottish folk combine with old time jazz and blues, and he has been called incredibly beautiful by BBC 6 Music’s Mary Anne Hobbs.

Add our ground floor folk sessions, proper pub food and a bar going all day with a late licence until 1.00pm, and you have everything a London folk festival should be. Entry is free, so bring your friends and settle in for a full day and night of live folk music in King’s Cross.

Source: The Harrison website