the crowd say Bo, Selecta! for Craig David and Primal Scream at Common People

Common People (Southampton) 2016

Saturday 28th to Sunday 29th May 2016
Southampton Common, Southampton, Hampshire, SO15 7NN, England MAP
£45 weekend tickets or £25 for a day ticket

Daily capacity: 30,000

If you're the kind of person who visits multiple festivals over the summer then no doubt you spend a large portion of your spring months agonising over line-up announcements and weighing it up against distances to travel and reviews to decide which ones get your patronage each year. But there is another way to ensure that your summer months are full of the type of festivals that you want to attend – stage your own. Now there are obvious downsides to this, not least being the sheer cost of staging one, but DJ and self confessed festival junkie Rob Da Bank has managed this, and from the humble beginnings of Bestival, he now boasts five festivals spread out across the summer months, including the family friendly Camp Bestival and transatlantic Bestival Toronto.

The smallest of these events are the Common People festivals, which started out with 2015's Southampton event and has now expanded out to include an Oxford event too.

As a veteran of every Bestival since it started, this year it was a chance to experience the Southampton event and see how it compares to it's big brother. The first thing that strikes you is that this is an event aimed at more casual visitors – with no camping and a well placed venue just outside the city centre, we had the luxury of booking a hotel up the road with all the luxuries that entails. Getting to the site is pretty easy too – for the fitter amongst you it is entirely feasible to walk from the local train station, however most people – ourselves included – opted for the shuttle busses which ran between the festival and the local transport links. At only £5 return each day it was a reasonable option to save your legs for the rest of the day.

Arriving at the site you have to wonder where the festival is, as although taking place in the middle of a city, it is well hidden in the middle of the common and the trees keep every thing secret until you arrive. When coming through the gates the site opens out before you. Getting onto the site was a breeze and, as this is a Bestival event, familiar faces were in the press tent to welcome us. This wasn't the only thing that was familiar for Bestival veterans as a lot of the 'furniture' has found its way here too - and as well as the flags and decorations, micro-venue The People's Frontroom, the Bollywood Bar and Jam Jar Bar all came out for an outing. Music is split out across four stages, the Common (main) stage, the smaller Uncommon Stage hosting local bands, and the Unconfined stage and Bug Bar for DJs.

Opening proceedings on the Common Stage were Wild Front, a band that started out promisingly enough with a song that bought to mind a slightly less bass-led Level 42, but sadly drifted back into bog standard indie landfill. So instead we wandered over to the Uncommon stage for Afrobeat band The Sea Slugs, an 8-piece who were crammed onto the stage and clearly unable to dance around as much as they would like to on the small stage. Musically they were pretty good however and perfect background for sitting out in the early afternoon sun.

Rob da Bank is a family man and so his festivals always hold something for all ages and Common People is no different, boasting not only the worlds largest Bouncy Castle, but also a full and varied kids area with everything from crafts such as wood turning, to Hula hoops, to trapeze workshops, although as with kids areas at all festivals they seem to be enjoyed as much by the adults as the kids.

Making our way back to the common stage, quite a crowd was forming, and excitement for the next act was getting to fever pitch with one lady in her mid-thirties next to me excitedly telling her friend "it's actually the real Chuckle Brothers". They arrived on stage sang a couple of songs, did a quick round of "To me!" "To you!" and left again shortly after, but the response from the crowd you'd have thought that the headline act had made an unscheduled appearance - certainly If nothing else they draw a crowd and a smile.

The weather seems to have been ordered for the event currently warm but not too hot, so ideal to keep wandering. One thing that does strike you is how well laid out the site is - for a small site with multiple stages there is very little bleed between stages and even if you're on the fringes of an area you still get a good sound.

After savouring a pleasant cocktail from the Jam Jar Bar, we headed back to the Common Stage for what we expected to be 80s hip-hop legends The Sugarhill Gang but instead, because of traffic problems on site we instead had a late Lady Leshurr, performing a thankfully truncated set as they attempted to get back onto schedule. unfortunately it also meant that Sugarhill Gang were cut short too - but not before they performed their signature hit 'Rappers Delight' to an equally delighted crowd.

One of the advantages of small festivals is that you can yo-yo between stages without fear of missing bands, the downside of this is that you often get tempted to miss full sets while trying to see everything. Thankfully we settled down long enough to enjoy a confident performance from Signals, whose bright sound get the now packed Uncommon Stage jumping.

Once at the forefront of political unrest Public Enemy were the band that made traditional white America quake, these days however time has diminished them to not much more than a greatest hits package. Nonetheless they performed with great gusto, even though they were missing the most visible member of the band – Flava Flav – who had to be content to stay at home and make sure his clocks were correct after being denied a Visa to tour, showing that maybe they haven't completely lost their ability to scare the establishment just yet.

Protest music of a very British kind was taking place on the Uncommon stage with Sean McGowan wearing the influences of Billy Bragg and The Clash on his sleeve. I have to say this is more to my liking than Public Enemy's overt anger - Seán's subversive but catchy folk-punk just seems to have far more to say.

It was a trip back to the 90s next for Primal Scream, performing with a very reduced band form previous times I have seen them, Bobby Gillespe's voice was never that strong, and seemed particularly weak this time round, although as the set went on he seemed to recover and by the time they got onto the Stones-influenced 'Rocks' and 'Swastika Eyes' they gave what I thought was the performance of the day, building the crowd into a frenzy with their breakthrough song 'Loaded'.

Craig David's TS5: Common People Southampton 2016

Tonights headliner was the return of Southampton-born Craig David now with the added moniker of TS5. Despite the suggestion of a band that these additional characters implied, the set was in fact a solo show, with Craig singing vocals over prerecorded music and occasional mixing. The crowd were clearly pleased to see his return to his home town, however I have to say it did nothing for me - his voice is very good, but having made the strange choice to open the show with some of his biggest songs - 'Re-Rewind' and 'Fill me in', leaving the show with nowhere to go. so we took the chance to leave him to it and beat the crowds to get an earlier bus back safe in the knowledge that we probably weren't missing much.

Despite the slightly low key ending it's has been a fantastic day in a good relaxed environment, and we left looking forward to more of the same tomorrow.