Rudimental and Kanye West review at Wireless 2014 – Saturday

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As Saturday rolls around, its been raining overnight in London but as the afternoon hits, the clouds slowly make way for sun as we hit Finsbury Park for Wireless Festival again.  As Drake cancelled, Kanye West will once again headline the London leg of Wireless and after yesterdays performance, we were hoping he might take note of the negative reviews and change things up today.

Running slightly late, a jewel encrusted mask wearing Kanye West kicks off with “Black Skinhead” and then into “I Don’t Like”.  Kanye changes things up to pay tribute to Drake who can’t be here and his deejay spins out a few Drake hits which go down really well with the public of whom most are disappointed is not here.  Kanye continues hit performance and his set is almost a replica of Friday night and we await the moment he begins his daily rant.  As “Clique” kicks in, Kanye once again pauses for a moment before telling the crowd about his issues with the media and how they portray him.  He then proceed’s to tell the crowd that they are “his clique”, and the music thunders back in as Yezzy finishes up this “Clique” verse.  There was a pattern occurring as Kanye belts through “Can’t tell me nothing”, “New Slaves”, “Power”, “Stronger” & “Runaway”.  Its at this point on Friday night Kanye kicked off his rant and the crowd was praying that he didn’t.  However this is Kanye West and he does what he wants, regardless of the boos which can surely be heard up on the stage.  As I stand by, numerous crowd goers begin to filter out stating, “I can’t believe he is doing it again”.

For me personally, the festival stage is not made for Kanye West, his sets belong in an arena.  At a time when thousands have paid to hear good music, the last thing they want to deal with is a 10 minute rant.

Rant over Kanye West, he smashes through hits, “Diamonds from Sierra Leone”, “Jesus Walks”, “Touch the Sky”, “All of the Lights” & “Bound 2”.

Overall minus the rant, you can’t knock the performance that Kanye gives, its energetic and the crowd join in to rap and sing on all his songs.

The rest of the Wireless day is packed full of massive artists and we managed to catch Rudimental, Wiz Khalifa, Labrinth, Azealia Banks and more.

London’s own Rudimental brought their full stage production to the Wireless main stage and as the sun shone down on London, the lads from London trawled through their hits “Give You Up”, “Right Here”, “Free” and their massive smash hit “Feel the love”.  Special guests John Newman and Ella Eyre joined the Rudimental boys on stage for “Not Giving In” and “Waiting All Nite” respectively.

Photo courtesty of Wireless Festival – Andrew Whitton

Wiz Khalifa brought his typical cool stage presence to the main stage and had heads bopping for the hour long set as he entertained the crowd with “Bout Me”, “Man of the Year”, “”GangBang”, “Roll Up”, “We Own It”, “Young Wild and Free” and crowd hitter “Black and Yellow”.

Another local London lad, Labrinth always knows how to work the crowd and he did just that at Finsbury Park.  Always dressed to impress, Lab’s biggest tracks of the day are “Let the Sun Shine”, “Earthquake” and “Beneath Your Beautiful”.

Over in the Pepsi Max stage, the likes of Knife Party and Pretty Lights bring draw the electronic dance music fans to the tent.  The Boombox stage also hosts D&B artist Wilkinson, as well as All About She, and girl group M.O.

So another day at Wireless Festival is over, and with Bruno Mars and Outkast to headline tomorrow there is still a hell of a lot to look forward to.  See you in the park tomorrow!

Photo courtesy of Wireless Festival – Rachael Wright

Sonisphere 2014 Friday Review – Prodigy

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Limp Bizkits' fail of the night.

"Now you know what time it really fucking is. Limp Bizkit in the house, you ready for this." Screams lead singer Fred Durst after three lovely ladies harmoniously sang Rolling, introducing the band to the stage. Enticing the audience with Faith, the crowd enthusiasm rose. The excitement from fans came to a slight stop after a little hiccup from Durst, completely messing up what day it is. "You guys to get your Saturday night on?" Confusion, and a short moment of silence from the crowd the singer quickly styled out a response of "Well it's Saturday night in my book." This wasn't the only blip the Durst randomly shouted 'Oh, Shit' in the middle of his set. Whether these mistakes were a result of one too many, or just a lack of communication from the bands media side we will never know. I have to admit these were soon forgotten after the bands incredible stage presence and claiming thing such as "What a pretty fucking crazy crowd tonight." Anthrax over lapping their time slot with Limp Bizbit and performing on the Bohemia tent which was proving to be pretty dam popular after the tent was so full security was stopping people from entering, surely Anthrax needed a bigger stage.

Friday's Headliner: Prodigy.
The band everyone has been anxiously waiting for all day, 21.20 finally arrived and the fans loudly welcomed tonight's first headliner Prodigy. Entering the stage with a epic entrance, creating suspense after emerging from the smoke covering the stage the crowd were ecstatic to see and hear the first glimpse of the band. 'I can't fucking hear you!'  Sending the crowd into euphoria with "Breathe", the rain starts to lightly fall as Prodigy head into "Jetfighter".  This did not put a downer on the crowd epically after seeing all of the burnt faces in the crowd. Forcing the crowd to go crazier than they already were, it was fair to say the people of Soniphere did not stop moshing, dancing, jumping, fist pumping, air guitaring, which could of been to do the metal cover the band slightly adjusted a few of their own songs to fit with the genre of Sonisphere. The band defiantly pulled this off after slowing down "Thunder" giving it a deeper bass, Prodigy defiantly get points for these adjustments. Finishing their set with the massive anthem "Smack My Bitch Up", Prodigy return with the crowd still buzzing with an encore of 'Take me to the Hospital', "Hyperspeed", "New Beats", "Their Law".  Keith Flint is forever engaging the crowd with phases like "I know you know what to fucking do and All you people at Sonisphere where the fuck are my prodigy people, A little more music, turn the fucker up". The stage presence of the band as a whole were truly incredible; the visual topped it off. With little stage art but the way the band was shown on the screen was edited in a surreal kind of way. Showing the band live in different effect such as negative, black and white and mirroring, which made it look as if this was pre recorded as a short art film. The array of coloured lights reaching the night sky gave the band greater performance. This band lived up to its name, and was for sure the best performance  of the night.

Pharrell & Kanye West close out Friday at Wireless Festival 2014

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Wireless Festival returned to London to host another set of superstar artists at this ever popular UK Festival.  Taking place over two locations this year, the other being Birmingham, the 2014 edition of Wireless organised a huge set of headliners including Kanye West, Pharrell, Drake, Bruno Mars and Outkast.

However due to a last minute cancellation, Wireless fans were disapointed to learn that Canadian hip hop mega star Drake was not going to perform to due health reasons preventing him from travelling to the UK.  Not to worry however as Kanye West agreed to headline both Friday and Saturday in London whilst Rudimental would play an extended performance in Birmingham.

London turned on the weather for Friday and the main stage hosted Foxes, Iggy Azalea, Tinie Tempah, Pharrell Williams and Kanye West.

Kanye West's return to London drew a sellout crowd in the new home of Wireless, Finsbury Park.  The sound of barking dogs signals “Black Skinhead” from West’s latest album Yeezus.  As the sun began to set a silver masked Kanye appears on the stage with the crowd giving him a huge cheer.   Taking control of the stage, Kanye moves straight into hits “On Sight”, “I Don’t Like” and then his massive anthem from last year “Mercy”.

Photo courtesy of Wireless Festival – Andrew Whitton

It wouldn’t be a Kanye performance without a bit of banter and a message to the crowd stating that the media are unfair and portray him in a negative way.  As the boo’s start to arise through the crowd, he says to the Wireless crowd “You guys are my clique” and then belts out “Clique” immediately drowning out the boo’s with the crowd singing his chorus.

Going through his back catalogue, notable tracks, “Stronger”, “Nigga’s In Paris”, “Run this town” and more keep the Yezzy fans happy as the sky turns grey and a few drops of rain start to fall.

Kanye’s pulling power and popularity is notable visible as the majority of the 40,000 crowd watch his set, but his mid performance rants don’t help the festival crowd and you visibly notice that they start filtering out.  Kanye will head back to the Wireless Main Stage tomorrow so lets see what he has to offer up then!

Before Kanye took to the stage, Pharrell performed to a massive crowd whist the sun was shining down on London town.  Complete with his trademark hat, white tee and jeans, his performance is well received performing numerous tracks from his latest album Girl and a number of collaborations he has done through the year.  Kicking off with “Lose yourself to dance”, Pharrell had the crowd singing the whole hour and it was only appropriate that he ended with “Happy”.  The similes of the fans said it all, well done Pharrell!

Pharrell Williams Wireless Festival 4th July Tracklist:

  • Lose yourself to dance
  • Come get it Bae
  • Frontin
  • Hunter
  • Larilyn Monroe
  • Hot In Here
  • Jump Jump
  • Rockstar
  • Lapdance
  • She wants to move
  • Beautiful
  • Drop it like its hot
  • Know who you are
  • Hollaback Girl
  • Blurred Lines
  • Get Lucky
  • Happy

Photo courtesy of Wireless Festival – Scott Salt

Tinie Tempah also gave an explosive set, but what else do you expect from one of the UK’s biggest artists.  Tracks performed from both Disc-Overy and Demonstration showed that there is a reason this is Tinie’s fifth appearance at Wireless.  He takes control of the stage and gives the crowd just what they need in a crazy hot day in at a summer festival, some great tunes to dance and sing to.

Friday’s Wireless has come to an end but this is just the beginning of the weekend and we look forward to seeing  the likes of Rudimental, Wiz Khalifa, Labrinth, and more!  Lets just hope the weather plays nice and there isn’t too much rain!