Beacons Festival '13

Imagine a festival with a stellar line-up of bands and DJs, a festival that's also passionate about cinema, art and good food...a festival where not one idiotic cry of “ALAN!” “STEVE?!” is heard all weekend. That festival is Beacons and Beacons is perfect. 

We spend Thursday night dancing to The Cribs and Sweet Female Attitude in The Social tent and watching the harrowing film The Arbor in the cosy Into The Woods tent. The Into The Woods tent was part of The Space Between – the art space at Beacons and was definitely one of my favourite attractions at Beacons. You have to take your shoes off to get in and can lay back and relax on huge beanbags. Perfect for winding down or killing time before bands in the morning! The Space Between also offered Q&As with director Shane Meadows, screen printing, lectures about the brain, flag making, aura reading, giant scrabble and a Beacons Boutique that offered up delicious cake and face painting.

Friday's festivities begin with Big Deal, a denim clad dreamy duo who treat the crowd to laid back, summery shoegazy pop songs that ease everybody into the next 3 days of partying. To counteract the lovely Big Deal we head on over to the excellent You Need to Hear This stage to witness an excellently gloomy set by Esben and the Witch. Rachel Davies leaves everyone captivated with her haunting vocals and impeccable bass playing. They play an intense set that ends with a 10 minute wall of sound that could rival My Bloody Valentine's. We head on over to The Social for a fancy dress dance off  where the prize for the most amazing, mind blowing disco dancing is free Beacons tickets for life!
Friday is also fancy dress day at Beacons and with the theme being “Frontiers of the Future” there are some amazing outfits including a robotic looking lady with three heads and a man covered in silver paint. The atmosphere is excellent and the dance off provides a lot of sassy dancing to Got to be Real by Cheryl Lynn and a lot of laughs.

We're faced with a Bonobo and Fucked Up clash on the Friday night but after sidestepping to half of Bonobo's brilliant set we head on over to Fucked Up as we're more in the mood to mosh about. Frontman Damien Abraham has crushed a tinnie into his head. And he's styling it out and rocking it as if he's attending a wedding and the can is his jaunty little hat. Damien creates an amazing atmosphere and spends the whole set on the barrier hugging the crowd and shouting in their faces. We leave the tent chanting “dying on the inside! dying on the inside” and spend the rest of the festival wishing we could see them headline the You Need to Hear This stage every night.

Saturday brings such delights as Melody's Echo Chamber. Melody's Echo Chamber play a perfectly psychedelic set with amazing visuals. Singer Melody Proche is incredibly sincere and thanks the crowd about 20 times in-between crooning over dreamy pop that's been crafted with a little help from Tame Impala's Kevin Parker to create something beautiful. We end Saturday evening with Gold Panda. The Loud and Quiet stage is packed out and the crowd erupts into madness as soon as “You” begins playing. Dancing our feet off to Gold Panda's amazing set, complete with funky dancing from the man himself, is a brilliant way to end the night.

Sunday afternoon brings Sky Larkin! We expect catchy indie pop from the Leeds natives and catchy indie pop is delivered with old songs still sounding fresh and new songs sounding very promising. Beacons does a brilliant job at showcasing Yorkshire's excellent music scene as the next band we witness are Hookworms. Hookworms play their epic songs, that almost all clock in at over 6 minutes, very, very loudly. Singer MJ's vocals are barely heard above all the scuzzy guitars but he yelps and jumps all over the stage. Hookworms are loud, enthusiastic and put on a damn good show. We're also very excited, giddy even, because Danny Brown is the next act to grace us with his presence and he's the one we've been waiting for all weekend. 

Danny Brown is one of the most exciting and interesting names in hip hop and, accompanied by DJ and producer SKYWLKR, they put on a rowdy show that does not disappoint. When Danny decides to join the crowd for “Monopoly” he gets mobbed by sweaty bodies shouting along to every single word. Danny Brown was the absolute highlight of Beacons. We end Sunday night with Savages and do not regret it at all. Having never heard them before their raucous live show was a surprise and a highlight of the festival. Frontwoman/intimidating force of nature Jehnny Beth prowls around the stage looking like Bowie in his Thin White Duke phase. The intense vocals teamed with the lightning fast drumming creates a mind blowing sound. Savages are scary and sexy and everything I could want from a post-punk band. 

The festival overall had an amazing atmosphere, everyone was friendly, every band that I made an effort to see and every band that I stumbled upon was brilliant in their own way and when it was all over on the Monday morning we definitely all wanted to stay another night in that field in Skipton rather than return home to hot water and a comfy bed. Beacons 2013 did not disappoint and I cant wait to see what it brings next year.

Words by Eden Young and Photos by Sandy Rushton

Parklife Festival 2013

Saturday

First on my list to see was Lapalux. After seeing the Essex boy and RnB bootleg advocate earlier in the year and being more than impressed I wanted to see if he could match that performance to a larger, younger, Levi cut off wearing, Mkat sniffing audience. All of this on top of a set early on in the day and a very large tent must have been intimidating, compliments to Now Wave.

Known best for his merging of RnB and synth that coincide with sublime future garage and deep house remixes Saturdays set wasn’t as I’d hope. The sound was poor, non of which was Stuart Howard's fault, and the audience (that were sat down) were even worse. I felt pity on the dude! Big tune and a personal favourite notably released on Fly Lo’s Brainfeeder label ‘Guuurl’ wasn’t received as highly you’d expect as the majority of the audience looked as if they were on a school trip and/or day release. Please, leave your bum bags and snap backs at home.

Parklife was a dire representation of Manchester and all the talent it houses. Although the variety and caliber of electronic music was on point, the crowds were not and never have I realised what impact this makes. A clear representation of this was Dusky's set.

After previously seeing the London duo at Sankeys, they delivered a similar set with new age anthems such as Calling Me, Nobody Else and Murial. With releases on Aus, Dogmatik, Aunjunadeep and the mighty School Records, its crowd pleasing, it’s a little cautious and it’s oh so Swamp 81. The tent was more so full than my previous visit for Lapalux and the light warehouse tech/bass soul connoisseurs ‘worked it.’ Recent released EP Vanishing Point was a favourite.

After a wonky wait to speak to a Parklife affiliate about using my camera in the pit without being looked at if I were a criminal and getting NOWHERE I decided to venture back to the Now Wave tent to see the infamous Four Tet grace his presence. As expected, expectations were high and like the whole weekend, a bit of a let down. Without blaming the genius himself, nothing could be helped from the poor sound nor the squalking 15 year old girls that kept asking the question ‘Is this Four Tet?’ This and the combination of large inflatable balls and riled up coke heads donning their wifebeaters jumping in all directions proved too much for not only me but the majority (and small selection) of the crowd. The sound picked up slightly towards the middle of the set and we heard the likes of Pyramid, Jupiters and Lion from the fantastic creation that is Pink. I was hoping to hear his recent remix of JT’s Suit and Tie but unfortunately 25 minutes was enough to send me under.

The majority of my Saturday was spent speaking to and getting nowhere with various members of staff, practically babysitting the amount of pissed up children that attended and trying to find somewhere to sit down. Can’t say this years festival was for me.

Becca Kennedy

Sunday

I hate students. You're always cheering and hollering about something. After a packed tram ride to Heaton Park full of said students and their stinking armpits in my face I made my way just in time to see my first act of the day, Action Bronson, who's spearheading the revival of the good old days of New York Hip Hop with the likes of Joey Badass and The Flatbush Zombies. His set is tight and very entertaining, singles from his new EP 'SAAB Stories' such as Triple Backflip and Strictly 4 My Jeeps get an airing and there's even an appearance from Danny Brown for their verses on ASAP Rocky's track 1 Train. The set comes to a close with Bronson taking his microphone out of the tent and walking around Parklife causing a near stampede of people trying to get back into the tent with him as he makes his was back to stage via the crowd. 

Danny Brown's on next after a short DJ Set from his DJ Skywlkr, whipping the crowd into a frenzy, Brick Squad will always be well received at a DJ set, even if you're a total joke of a DJ, so Guetta if you're reading this, take 
notes. Danny Brown's got a back catalogue to be proud of, tracks from mixtape XXX get an airing, as do singles produced by the likes of Araabmuzik and Flosstradamus, and judging by the couple of songs he played from upcoming album 'Old' the album's going to be a corker. There's moshpits and crowdusurfing galore, and despite the shitty sound over at the Hudson Mohawke tent, he has the crowd in the palm of his hands, at one point a fan gets a little too excited and receives a 
crack over the head by Danny's microphone and he doesn't even miss a beat, incredible. And then something strange happens, Action Bronson walks back out to let us know his iPhone has been stolen and there will be a cash reward for anyone who returns it to him, up jumps a kid (a little too fast, if you get what I mean) and hands him his phone, Bronson gives the kid £2000 as a thank you, lifts him over his shoulder and takes him backstage leaving the crowd with jaws wide open. 

Joey Badass has already started his set at the Ape Parklife Beatdown (I have no idea either) tent by the time I get there with the majority of his setlist coming from his debut mixtape '1999' the show ends with the song that made him an overnight star 'Survival Tactics' chaos ensues and there's a stage invasion, man of the day Action Bronson rescues Joey from the over-eager crowd, I think it's fair to say that hip hop's just got exciting again. On the main stage are one of the only acts in Hip Hop to always keep it real, despite its sudden taking over of the mainstream, Jurassic 5, who had a packed crowd grooving and grinning like cheshire cats in the scorching heat, there was even para-gliders dancing overhead 
to classics such as Concrete Schoolyard and What's Golden, a memory that will stick with me forever so thank you J5.

 I end the night back at the Hudson Mohawke tent to see the man himself along with Lunice, TNGHT, they play tracks from debut EP TNGHT and plenty of Kanye West songs, so much in fact that it was just short of an interruption from the man himself. Parklife have plenty to improve on for next year, there was no signal, the majority of the bar staff seemed not to be able to count, the stage times and map on the £6 lanyard were largely wrong and I ended up being kettled for 2 hours waiting for the bus home, but if they manage to keep the sun, incredible acts and get a lot of the students to leave their shitty LADish attitudes back at their shitty uni halls, they may just have a winning formula.

Aaron Lewins