HONK!: Street Art?

I suppose you could call the HONK! festival "street art", but that description doesn't quite capture the energy of this annual event. Over Columbus Day weekend, activist marching bands paraded through Mass Ave. from Davis Square in Somerville to Harvard Square: blowing trumpets, pounding on drums, circling on decorated bikes and towering above the crowd on stilts. All with different causes, it seemed that the march was not so much a focus on any particular issue, but rather a way to bring together the community in a fun, aesthetically and musically-engaging awareness of their ability to be heard. The overarching theme of this year's parade was "Reclaim the Streets for Horns, Bikes, and Feet!" Plenty of each there were, and though the tunes blasting from the horns in each band were different, each blended almost seamlessly into the next as they made their way past the crowds. Check out the photos for a taste of this eclectic event.