there's a hugely up for it festival crowd at the opening day of Field Day

Field Day 2014

Saturday 7th to Sunday 8th June 2014
Victoria Park, Tower Hamlets, Greater London, E9 7BT, England MAP
£80 for weekend

Daily capacity: 25,000

The sun is shining, the air is sweet, it’s 3PM and huge swathes of Victoria Park are already going loco as you can gauge a hugely up for it festival crowd as soon as you’re in the vicinity of the festival.

Sophie was the first act we caught on the Red Bull Academy Stage, a small but up for it crowd for the mysterious Sophie who was the only act of the first day to insist on no photos being taken of him. His mystique or intrigue is complimented by a disorientating rave style with pitch shifted rap vocals and colourful helium like pop music. Booming sluggy kicks bookend the set with sickly sweet girl next door lyrics pasted over oddly angled drum patterns. He has begun to make serious waves in the music press having recently been championed by Gorilla vs Bear in the US. It’s not hard to see why, it’s an inimitable style that combines elements of contemporary hip hop, electro, bass-centric old school rave and 80s synth pop. Check this one out.

Jackmaster & Oneman have been playing back to back in various sweatbox nightclubs and all across the radio for the last number of years. Field Day seen the premier of their Can U Dance festival run which took placed in the Bugged Out tent. A set littered with house music, garage, grime and the odd 80s classic such as ‘Roxanne’ was marred by awful sound which was a problem in the tent throughout the day. Through no fault of their own it was hard to get fully involved in the set which was hosted by the charismatic hype man MC ASBO.

Back to the Red Bull Music Academy for what was arguably the set of the day by Evian Christ. Odd-ball hip hop with ambient and trance elements moving the crowd from head nods to full on mosh pit and back again as the floor and your body reverberated for the entirety.

There is a fear that the Resident Advisor stage would undergo the same sound issues that the Bugged Out! Stage had due them being roughly around the same size. We made our way over to check out everyone’s favourite Swedish disco enthusiast Todd Terje who was playing live at this year’s event. The popularity of his latest album was perhaps best highlighted by the packed out tent he was playing in, the setting was perfect to hear a masterfully delivered set with the highlight being the track which has seemingly been omnipresent for two years now – Inspector Norse. The track is cheeky, playful, uplifting, downright genius that has possibly managed to be the first track to earn tune of the summer twice in a row.

That’s quite a lot of dancing covered and we can barely stand anymore but we fight on as Jon Hopkins is about to take his show on the Eat Your Own Ears main stage. A show I’ve seen a few times in the past year and it’s been exceptional each time, yet it’s lost tonight on the open air stage it doesn’t hold the kind of murky up close depth that a tent or indoor venue lends to his music. I may be alone in that thinking though as the general crowd reaction was an overly positive one, a slight dip to end what was a pretty great day one.

review by: Paul Mullin

photos by: Aideen McDaid