Around this time of year, the festival season begins and England is not kidding around with their festival summer: Download, Glastonbury, Latitude, Lovebox, Shambala, Wilderness, Wireless, V and also Wild Life. We started off our musical summer at Wild Life Festival last weekend. On the runways of Brighton City airport, thousands of people sung and danced to DISCLOSURE, RUDIMENTAL, ICE CUBE, JAMES BAY, SKEPTA, ANNIE MAC, BASTILLE, BUSTA RHYMES, JACK GARRATT, STORMZY and many more. A total of 5 stages became host of some of the greatest artists of our generation and whether you're into rap, indie, rock or pop music – every taste was satisfied. Only in it's second run, Wild Life has proven to be a great new addition to its genre and has also won the "Best new festival" award at the UK festival awards in 2015.
A sneak peek into what Wild Life was like in 2015:
It may come as no surprise that when artists Disclosure and Rudimental are the curators of Wild Life that it just has to be a success. We attended day 2 of the festival, starting off with watching Stormzy fire his raps away to the mostly teenage mass, while they were singing along to every of his songs. The weather being so-and-so on Sunday, dark grey clouds to your right set a wonderful contrast to a lighter blue and sunny sky on the left. But even some rain drops every now and then made no difference to the enthusiastic crowd. Rain coat on and ready to go! To fuel up, a number of food trucks offered a great choice, even if you are living vegan, gluten-free etc. Find out more about the delicacies right here: Food @ Wild Life Festival
As the day went on, you could not only discover cool new artists on the smaller stages such as CARL COX, PUSHA T or SECTION BOYZ, but also flavored O2 at the oxygen bar. Or airbrush tattoos to get that not so permanent souvenir from the festival. Swing carousels and other attractions made Wild Life a merge of a fun fair and festival – not a bad place to be at!
Next we witnessed the impressive one-man-show of Jack Garratt, who really does wear his talent up and down his sleeves with a drumstick in one hand, guitar in the other and a microphone in between there as well. He played old songs like "Weathered", but also some new ones like "Worry".
Up then was the incredible James Bay, who rose to fame with his single "Let It Go" and eventually had his international breakthrough with "Hold back the river". Especially during these two songs, James let the crowd sing right back at him, while he was in total excitement, screaming "Yeahhh!" more than once. It really did feel like a big jam session around a campfire with the crowd singing at the same volume as James and his band.
Bastille conquered the main stage right after, performing their version of "No Scrubs" by American girl group TLC, called "No Angels" and "Of The Night", a mash up of the 1993 hit "The Rhythm of the Night" by Corona and the 1992 hit "Rhythm Is a Dancer" by Snap!. Good sing-along tunes for the now mixed-age crowd that when the beat in "Of The Night" dropped, they made the grass below their dance floor, moving rhythmically to the music.A precursor for the dance laden performance by Rudimental later on. Bastille of course also played their hit single "Pompeii", which only has over 300 million views on Youtube and while still blasting out their older tunes, the band also dove into their new album that is set to hit the stores in 2016. Their new single "Good Grief" came out yesterday.
The legend that is Ice Cube rapped his set away during a rather romantic sunset that totally fit his sometimes rather profane lyrics. To conclude the festival, Rudimental created a big party both on and off stage, giving it a good finish and maybe a see you soon for next year's Wild Life festival?
Der Beitrag Wild Life Festival | Music Event erschien zuerst auf SUPERIOR MAGAZINE.