As I wearily dragged my sore feet across the threshold of Burton Constable Hall – weary from ten hours of Dad-dancing the day before – my plan was to head straight to the coffee vendor. But rather than an Americano I was met with a British pick-me-up: Little Mix. Now I’m sure I’m not alone when I say my preconception of the group is that they are no doubt incredibly successful but because I don’t fit the demographic of a young girl I would never be their biggest fan. I think after watching their performance the notion isn’t as far-fetched as I might have thought. I think I was most impressed with their talent – as strange as that sounds I was half-expecting a lip-synced cheesy autotune (as is the case with many high-calibre pop artists) but it was evident that each of the perfect harmonies and rehearsed choreography were a result of handwork and dedication. I was mildly shocked, but incredibly impressed.
If there is one season to define Two Door Cinema Club it is Summer – whether they are performing their tracks across the globe or you simply hear a distant song drifting from the serving hatch of an ice cream van they are everywhere that the sun shines, and as a result have a wonderfully warm sense of familiarity. It was therefore a treat to catch them at Radio 1’s Big Weekend Hull 2017 in the Where It Begins stage. Now with long hair, frontman Alex got the crowd going wild and their allotted half an hour trickled away faster than the ice cubes of a cocktail. Ending their set with well-loved favourites “What You Know” and “I Can Talk” was a very clever move and if the arrival of Summer wasn’t already obvious, it was now.
As a pre-confirmed Emeli Fandé (who says guitarleaves isn’t a funny platform…) I was beyond eager to watch her perform again. Every time I have seen her play live in the past was sensational, and I think her biggest talent (of the many she possesses) is being able to unite an audience through the raw emotion in her music. As I knew would happen, I can proudly say I was not disappointed. She opened with “Heaven” and the crowd went wild. The rest was an ecstatic blur of glittering stage lights and shimmering fireworks dripping liquid amber from a great height. If anyone knows how to get a crowd going it is Emeli Sandé, and she made each track accessible, even the more modern ones such as “Hurts” and “Highs and Lows” which perhaps weren’t as well known to the average attendee were met with riotous encore and a quickly-learned chorus singalong. It was a stunning performance which included in my opinion the most poignant moment of the weekend: after paying a heartfelt tribute to Manchester the screen behind her was illuminated with a Manchester loveheart and she sang “Read All About It, Pt. III” with the voices of twenty-five thousand behind her. Music really is a universal language and it is a moment that will stay with me forever.
*Spoiler alert: Lorde stole the entire weekend.*
Festival season, regardless of which form it takes, is complete without good music. The weather may vary and the toilets will probably overflow; but nothing can dampen our spirits when there is an auditory electricity blaring blaring from the speakers – and so you can imagine the excitable anticipation when staple band Imagine Dragons were announced as part of the line-up. Entering the stage with a bang and only pausing for breath when they later ran offstage to momentous applause the four-piece led the crowd through a selection of hits, including “Radioactive” and their recent single, “Thunder”. They may not be dragons but their set was certainly on fire.
For me, the most wonderful thing about festivals is that the vast line-up allows you to go and try new things and explore artists for whom you wouldn’t normally venture to see a gig. Rag’n’Bone Man exemplified this, and in the space of his half-hour set managed to completely blow me away. Of course I was no stranger to the enormous success of “Human” and “Skin” although I wasn’t aware of just how soulful he was as an artist. In his set especially I noticed just how much of a special attachment he felt through his music, and this was especially true during his rendition of “Bitter End”. Managing to simultaneously silence and somehow heal a huge throng of festival-goers is no easy feat, but I suppose even an overflowing tent of screaming fans proved no match for the might of his vocal chords.
Today we return again to Cambridge-born artist Nick Mulvey, and his latest single “Unconditional”. This track, like the rest of his records, encapsulates so beautifully a wide range of cultural music forms – no doubt attributed to his time spent studying in Cuba and a subsequent degree in Ethnomusicology. Like in the well-known “Cucurucu”, he makes full use of a complex beat before layering it with a rich tapestry of unusual instrumentals, ensuring he remains true to his artistic trademark.
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