I cannot believe how long it’s taken me to write about Love Saves The Day. In my defence, I was up in Birmingham getting job training for the month and only managed to shoot back for the long weekend before going back again – the fun never stops!
I have to say, I didn’t manage to reach nearly enough on Saturday purely because I was working/knackered, but I did go down to get a lay of the land and prep my bearings. Had I of been attending as a punter, I wouldn’t have bought a ticket for Saturday…and that would have been a mistake. Although Sunday had more of my kind of music in the billing, the vibe was undoubtedly better on the Saturday.
People generally felt a lot more willing to talk to strangers, possibly because a lot of the people I spoke to were from out of town and were there just to get involved and see where the day took them. Many a wedding was had at the inflatable circus.
Sunday was the one though, I can’t lie. Sunday was Bristol’s day – maybe that’s why the vibe wasn’t quite so happy/hype – because everyone knew each other! For me Sunday standardly started with a ‘shit/fuck/bollocks’ moment from myself. I’d been invited to back Eva Lazarus with fellow Afronaught Naomi Jeremy as part of the Jus Now set.
For anyone that knows me, I am late to everything. So I arrive with twenty minutes until Jus Now takes the stage and I’m standing in the guestlist que which is NOT moving. Now, I only have myself to blame so I can’t get toooo pissy about it but what upset me was that the general tickets que was speeeeeding past. When I shout conversed with friend much further up the que than me and explained I had to be on stage in what had ticked down to twelve minutes, she grabbed the first steward she saw and I was in! Thank you Gillian McKenzie – you are my saviour!
So, I ran to main stage and arrived sweaty and breathless – PERFECT conditions for singing. It was SO much fun though. The audience swelled from 40 to 200 at least in the space of ten minutes. On. Point.
After that I pretty much ran around catching people to interview and taking notes on all the different
acts I was seeing. It was exhaustingly exhilerating and I had no idea I was knackered until I hit a wall at 3am in the middle of motion. Body. Spent.
Here were my general notes for anyone that cares…
LoveSpecs:
Introduced to them by Eva, they are AMAZING. Even better, Miss Jess Farley glittered me up proper festival stylleeee – Blue Avatar vibes. Babe. Check her Instagram: @jessfarley
Raleigh Ritchie:
Haven’t seen this guy in a hot minute apart from when I’m watching Game of Thrones with new people and happen to ‘causually’ drop into conversation, ‘Oh yeah that’s Jake, I went to school with him’. He is kicking ass, taking names and still an absolute sweetheart. The energy he gave on stage was wicked, when a musician also manages to be a performer the audience connects with it so much more and woiii – peeps were going ape. Girls screamed like their lives depended on it when he jumped off the stage. Lols.
DJ EZ:
You know there are those DJ’s and you know you must have seen them before but you’ve got no idea when/why/what music they played, you just remember it was a good time. This can be due to overindulgence… Well, I know about this guy now, soon as he started playing I was like Oh yeeeeah, he’s fucking siiiick. It’s all coming back to me! Banger after banger got dropped on the old skl garage/grime/erryting worth listening to spectrum. Bossed it. That was the hardest I skanked out all day until I was shuffled out of backstage for the arrival of Skepta. Peak.
Skepta:
Now I can’t lie, I didn’t watch Skepta live because the crowd was SO TIGHT I chose oxygen instead. But I did see him before the show when we were all skanking to DJ EZ and he looked in high spirits. Gun fingers, smiles and laughter from his crew – it’s always nice to see someone genuinely enjoying the vibe.
Redlight:
This is who I chose as my nights headliner and didn’t he disappoint. The bangers that you expect executed well. There was a variety of genres and the crowd was as responsive as you’d expect. I’ve been a fan of Redlight from long time so there’s not a whole lot I can say except, he’s wicked. The set was live and it prepped me well for the next chapter of Motion.
Motion passed in a wave. Don’t ask me about that. So yeah, LSTD essay in it’s fullest! Can’t wait for next year – Eastville park is a perfect place for it, I only hope the residents weren’t kept up too late and all the hippy crack got cleared away before it went back to being family friendly.
‘General vibe’ interviews/discussions to come. I’m collecting over the summer and will be putting them up as a a series as remembrance to get us through those winter months…
