Hot Chip provide a subdued finale to end the first day of Lovebox Weekender

The weather leading up to Lovebox's tenth decade of 'the festival of love' was not exactly inviting with the rain pouring down in the days preceding it.

This did not deter of a lot of festival goers though, especially the huge array of females who turned up in bum skimming denim shorts and barely there tube tops, although wellies were out in full force as a preventive measure. The day started positively with the sun beaming down and although there was on, off rain intermittently for most of the day, it was actually a really nice festival atmosphere.

The day's acts were dominated by urban heavy DJs, which was reflected in the attendees; a quick walk round the site showed that Lovebox had upped its game slightly from last year, with some pretty cool installations using graffiti-ed cars, more places to purchase alcohol, and more quirky little stages tucked away here and there.

I managed to catch the end of We Have Band on the main stage, who had a small but happy crowd bouncing about to them in the sunlight.

The schedule was running 45 minutes behind so there was a tad bit of confusion but up next was Essex MC Devlin, who bounded onto stage with bags of energy, his talented DJ BigBeatz, his vocalist Olivia Leisk and a backing band, and he was also joined by fellow MC Rawz Artilla for their track Scary Movie.

He talked to the audience like they were long lost friends and introduced each track with a prologue before launching into his fast paced, energy-fuelled verses.

As his set progressed more people flocked to the stage to join the hardcore fans that had already assembled and cheered and whooped their appreciation at Devlin.

In mutual appreciation Devlin declared, "I fucking love this crowd!" before revealing that his set was over but not before he treated the audience to his F64 (64 bars of acoustic rap), which had the place go wild, as each line was delivered with such force and people shouted out admiration throughout.

2 Bears were playing the relatively small Stockade stage but the effect and sound they were creating would have made you think they were headlining. As the sun really did its best to break through the clouds I wandered over to the outside rave and caught some of their set.

The bears themselves were modestly DJing away and bopping their heads whilst the crowd was going absolutely crazy; people with all sorts of costumes, rave gear and untold amounts of energy were creating all sorts of shapes and leaping about whilst two leotard-wearing dancers bounced about the stage around the guys.

The music they were playing was infectious and admittedly it was impossible not to jam along; they created a banging party atmosphere and I would highly recommend checking them out at a festival.

I spent a while in The Big Top Stage area as the crowds were really crowding there (probably due to the football being played on a large screen outside) and managed to see DJ Zinc as well as MC P Money (who kept popping up in people's sets there and went down a storm with the crowd) as well as DJ Plastician, who kept the crowd moving with their tunes from old school garage to grime to drum n' bass and dubstep.

Crystal Castles had a main stage slot and also quite a huge following of people who were literally running to see them even though the weather had made a turn for the worse. Lead singer Alice appeared on stage as captivating as ever with her purple hair, green barbour jacket and black laced outfit.

She is definitely a wonder to watch as she slinked her way across the stage, waving her arms about and singing along to the computerised beats and digital sounds.

Headliners, Hot Chip, took to the stage in a blur of lasers, bright lights and special FX as the headline act on the first day of the festival and provided a fun, solid performance, which had just the right mix of chilled out sounds and escalated into punchier, dancier beats that had the crowd flailing about, especially the more drunken ones.

It was a good subdued finale to end the first day of festivities.

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