Music

Parklife review – rap, reggae and rave under gallons of northern rain


For its 10th year, the UK’s biggest inner-city festival had booked Cardi B, but the US rapper withdrew due to her recovery from cosmetic surgery, and her absence is certainly felt. The hurriedly reshuffled (and less popular) makeshift headliner Mark Ronson drops her Bodak Yellow into what is basically a DJ set of his hit productions. Rapper Dave displays a bandaged ankle and pointedly tells the crowd: “I’d do the show on crutches if I had to.” Even the excellent, big-grinning, soul- and jazz-inspired hip-hopper Loyle Carner can’t resist cheekily changing No CD’s lyric to: “We spent all our money on Cardi B.”

Still, neither the star’s non-appearance nor the heavy downpours truly dampen the Mudchester party vibes. The nine stages include the Temple (noisily curated by Chase & Status on Saturday) and the colossal Hangar, which blasts dance music all day long. The music is markedly contemporary, so drum kits and guitars are almost as rare as audience members over the age of 21. Rap dominates Saturday’s lineup. Earl Sweatshirt is thrilled by the opportunity to perform on a catwalk in the Sounds of the Near Future tent, yelling: “If you ever get chance to do this, take it!” Advice noted. Gritty MC Slowthai makes full use of the stage prop, topping a storming set by running the length of the audience and returning without his trousers.

Meanwhile, the seminal reggae DJ David Rodigan, who is 67, all but clears the main stage field. His silently received shout to the “junglist massive” illustrates a generation gap, but the crafty old pro rescues the situation with the day’s best quip: “If your mum was a junglist massive, this is for your mum.” Parklife audiences like it in your face and banging, so Dave and AJ Tracey pull hordes but Christine and the Queens’ sophisticated, choreographed, #MeToo-referencing electronic-pop masterclass – which clashes with Disclosure and Mark Ronson – is poorly attended. Still, she turns the challenge into a triumph. “This show is extra special because I can actually see all your faces,” she gamely insists, playing to a sparsely populated but wildly cheering soggy audience as if it were a crowd at Stade de France.

Family-friendly ... George Ezra.



Family-friendly … George Ezra. Photograph: Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage

Sunday mixes things up, with huge crowds for Mabel’s summery, Jamaican-tinged R&B and massed croon-alongs for Khalid. Stockport quintet Blossoms – the closest thing to a guitar band – play their synth-driven, wistfully euphoric bangers under a quintessential northern drizzle, which turns into a monsoon. The bad weather prompts the Streets’ Mike Skinner to claim, “I have paid God for the sun” – which magically appears minutes later. The revitalised MC’s terrific set incorporates extemporised standup into a flow that veers brilliantly from comedy to poetry. With Skinner working the crowd superbly, Dry Your Eyes feels cathartic, then everyone bounces around like loons to a triumphantly silly Fit But You Know It.

Any suspicions that this brutally fashionable crowd might not warm to main stage headliner George Ezra’s lightweight, family friendly hits prove unfounded, as Paradise, Shotgun and the rest get teenagers in mud-covered glittery outfits dancing. Many, though, opt to see the weekend out at the vast Valley stage, where Diplo’s Major Lazer mix dancehall and a Drake remix into a crowdpleasing, audiovisual spectacular. Parklife isn’t for everybody, but for a festival that’s more like a massive rave, it is the place to go.



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