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home » festivals » V Festivals » V Festival (Chelmsford) 2011
Rihanna joins Eminem on stage on final day of V FestivalV Festival (Chelmsford) reviewMonday 29th August 2011 Sunday morning started very differently to the previous in Hylands Park, as the sun was shining from the start. As the arena didn't open until midday there was lots of activity around the campsitse as the sun had woken people early, and bodies sprawled outside their tents nursing hangovers and lack of sleep. In relation to onsite facilities the toilets were in good shape all weekend, apart from the unfortunate few cubicles, and in the arena there were real toilets for ladies to use provided by FemFresh. I grabbed myself a Slush Puppie from the stall offering more flavours than I had ever seen in my life, and settled down in front of the 4 Music stage for the first act of the day, The Knux, and what a start to the day!
Another American group followed as D12 took to the stage and it was a perfect follow on. D12's set is always a bit stunted when they play the same festival that Eminem is headlining at; I also witnessed this last year, as they never fully play songs that he is involved in, but as a group of guys they communicate well with and entertain the crowd, and that's what matters. I caught Dionne Bromfield in the Arena tent; this little diva stole my heart a little bit as she performed. I wanted so badly to move away from the connection of her being Amy Winehouse's Goddaughter but the way she moves and the soulfulness in her voice is remarkably similar to the late, tragic singer. At an unbelievable 15 years old she filled the stage with her mature vocals and was not masked by her troop of eclectic backing dancers at all. After a detour to find the inflatable sofas that the Nokia area was giving out, and a quick snap in a mini London Bus in the Coke Zone, I found myself at the latter part of N-Dubz packed set. The area was absolutely rammed and the crowd loved it. From what I saw they provided a great performance, and the roof of Hylands Park was completely raised when they launched into 'Number 1'.
There was still a solid core of fans for The Wombats and it was a really uplifting set with the sun beaming down, and people swaying, singing along, and dancing about; when the guys finished on 'Let's Dance to Joy Division' there was such a good feeling with the crowd going completely crazy. I have to say the festival atmosphere in general was very chilled with people continuously talking to you or coming up to have a dance when an act was on, and I saw very little, if no trouble as security were on the ball too. As the evening fell, Rihanna took to the V stage, with a big head of curls and a pair of seemingly endless legs, and performed an extremely sexy set. I'm not her number one fan but I was impressed as she is a great show woman. She went through her tunes and hits from the commercial to the lesser known. As a live singer she struggled now and again but her movements across the stage made up for that. There were a lot of saucy dance moves being thrown by the ladies in the crowd copying her so she was definitely doing something right! I was not happy that I could hear music coming from other stages sometimes louder than the two acts I had come to watch on the V stage, which was disappointing.
Musically, he covered everything a fan could possibly ask for, considering he doesn't play in the UK often; his one and a half hour set spanned from his early career with classics such as 'My Name Is' to more recent solo tunes from 'Recovery'. I can't even begin to list how much he packed into his set, from bringing out D12 to do their classic tracks 'Purple Pills' and 'Fight Music' to bringing out 'Royce Da 5'9'' to perform raw lyrics from their 'Bad Meets Evil' album. When they performed their latest release, 'Lighters', the crowd were instructed to hold up their lighters, and it made the area glow with a special ambience. Mathers packed in everything he could and to see him physically rapping that many lyrics in such a short space of time was astounding. He continuously thanked the crowd for staying behind him and supporting him for all these years but the real show stopper was Rihanna coming out to perform 'Love the Way You Lie'. The chemistry and power of those 2 artists together was electric and the crowd noise was raucous when they finished, standing back to back; it was my highlight by far. I saw Eminem perform last year and this set blew that one out of the window with the passion that he injected into it; the feeling in the massive crowd leaving the stage was sky high as people trudged back to their tents or other bars.  review by Fiona Madden photos by Fiona Madden 
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