Best of Boston

This annual free music and dance party sprawls along Somerville’s sidewalks and plazas, as dozens of brass and drum bands from across the U.S., Canada, France, Italy, Brazil, and Russia converge on Davis Square. The music pounds in your chest. The activism moves your soul. And to support the restaurants and shops in the square, Honk! forbids outside vendors. No wonder it’s the rare local cultural invention so successful, it’s been copied in New York, Seattle, and—for the first time this past January—Australia.