Calvin Harris and Hardwell bring the party to climax at the Tiesto-less Creamfields

Creamfields 2014

Friday 22nd to Sunday 24th August 2014
Daresbury Estate, Halton, Cheshire, WA4 4AR, England MAP
only Saturday £80, and Sunday £85 day tickets left

Daily capacity: 60,000

After catching up on some much needed sleep after a hard Saturday, it was nice to see a bit of sun over Daresbury Park to welcome us. With a brief walk through the South Field Stage, taking in a few minutes of Danny Avila, we entered the Cream tent to watch a legend of the Festival in action, Paul Oakenfold.

Paul Oakenfold: Creamfields 2014

Rolling back the years Paul still pumped out a sublime up to date set, with all the style the man has been famed for over all these years, still jumping to the beat and enjoying every twist and turn off his trance odyssey. Still a must see for me every year, we then moved across site to the Mixmag presents arena. Even with ten main stages or tented arenas on site, it still only takes minutes to traverse the leap in between musical subgenres, and in Mixmag presents we caught the end of James Zabiela’s set, seen in previous years on the main stage. It was nice to take in the intensity of his show in a smaller tent, he was followed on stage by Booka Shade, I had heard good things about the Booka boys, but to be honest they really didn’t hit my switch. We decided to leave after about 15 minutes, and go and get a drink, and it was on the way to source this that we heard rumblings around the site that Tiesto had cancelled his appearance. Our drinks made the news more bearable.

Nervo: Creamfields 2014

This was soon confirmed by signs up at all official stands around the site, we found our way over to the Gigantic North stage ready for the Australian twins Miriam and Olivia Nervo, better known as Nervo. I have never seen so many flags in my life, mostly Australian ones, and the girls loved it! They asked everyone in the crowd to hoist up any flags they had, and the view was like looking at the wall of a geography class, really giving an insight into Creamfields global reputation and pulling power.

The twins smashed out probably my favourite set of the weekend. They brought tremendous levels of energy to a crowd slightly deflated by the news of Tiesto’s cancellation under a now grey sky. These girls managed to allay any fears and brought the place back up to the speed of sound, again another act I could easily see jumping up the ranks at pace.

Due to the unforeseen cancellation of one of the headline acts decisions had to be made by the organisers. The decision was taken to promoteDimitri Vegas & Like Mike up from third top on the North stage to the headline slot on the South stage. Unfortunately this left a big hole to be filled, and so it was filled by one of Cream’s resident DJs - a very deserving spot, but it created what I felt was a bit of a problem. This was because due on stage at the same time that Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike were due to have been on the North stage the Adjoining tented arena was hosting one of the most eagerly anticipated sets of the weekend!

In the Departures tent were Axwell & Ingrosso better known as two thirds of Swedish House Mafia. This tent was full to breaking point, and it became a bit of a push and a shove to even see anything other than the head in front of you, and the tent never seemed to get any quieter, it was a brilliant set but I felt uneasy and a little unsafe, maybe in my opinion they should have moved this huge draw out onto the North stage. Shame, because we didn’t hang around to long, as both my girlfriend and I felt ill at ease.

Hardwell: Creamfields 2014

Soon to arrive on the South stage was reputed to be the world’s number 1 DJ Hardwell. An accolade bestowed on him by many magazines and many public votes, and it was soon obvious why Hardwell has this crown. He is obviously a young lad having the time of his life on the stage, getting as much out of the gig as the crowd. I have never seen anyone get into the music quite like he did, alongside the Giant twin screens, with the sun setting and pyro exploding at regular intervals it was easy to see why earlier we had witnessed just so many national flags flying.

If I were going to travel international to get to an EDM festival this would be the one. The weekend was drawing to a close unfortunately, with only a licence until 11 on Sunday night it had soon come around to the headline slot, and having seen Dmitri Vegas & Like Mike last year, we decided to go for Calvin Harris, to be expected the tall Scotsman did not let the Festival down, with a bumper crowd singing there hearts out all night long to refrains from such mega hits as, “Sweet Nothing” “We Found Love” and “Feel So Close” this was the big party the weekend needed to round things off, with a sea of flags and flares, and a barrage of Fireworks the weekend was drawn to a close yet again.

Creamfields 2014 yet again nailed it! August bank holiday 2015 is firmly in my diary as Creamfields yet again!

Calvin Harris: Creamfields 2014