Under a rare burst of Northeast sunshine, Radio 1’s Big Weekend turned Sunderland into a city vibrating with bass, sweat, and pure festival joy.
Seeing the festival in the distance had every attendee walking towards the site so excited; there wasn’t a person in sight not in high spirits.
Friday was the day of the dance party, big sounds, big beats and big names. It truly felt a full-scale rave was taking place in the park. BBC Introducing brought some of the local talent to take the stage by storm, including tech-house musician Max Jones and EDM DJ Jude Lawless. In the tent other DJs like Notion and Ewan McVicar stole the younger crowd’s hearts with their high-energy tracks.
On the main stage Sonny Fodera delivered an absolutely brilliant set, nothing short of sleek and polished. However, Fatboy Slim stole the whole show with his nostalgic, crowd-pleasing set and big visuals.
Day Two definitely saw a shift in clientele and the overall atmosphere. Walking in, I saw many mother-and-daughter duos in blue sparkles carrying signs for the day's headliner, Zara Larsson, except it wasn’t quite time for her entrance yet.
The festival organiser made the right choice putting in UK pop legend Ellie Goulding early doors, bringing in a large crowd, and Ellie delivering a set of singalongs. On the main stage Louis Tomlinson also had a huge turnout with a mix of emotional moments, like covering ‘Night Changes’, and switching to his indie solo songs, like ‘Imposter’.
While down at the new music stage MUNA took the crowd by storm with their delicious indie-pop anthems and got the fired crowd up when they shouted “Come on lesbians!”.
The star of the day and arguably one of the biggest artists on the planet right now, Zara Larsson, was the standout. She played a mix of tracks from ‘Pretty Ugly’ to Midnight Sun; with every track, the vocals and the dancing were incredible, a whole production and experience, not just a performance. She also invited a loyal fan up to do the viral Lush Life Dance, which was thoroughly enjoyed by the crowd.
Sunday was set for a day of headliners and big voices. Down at the BBC Introducing Stage, Finn Forster definitely bagged himself some new listeners with his set of indie anthems, same as Venus Grrrls with goth-grunge heavy tracks.
Ezra Collective provided the jazz vibes on the New Music Stage, and rising star Holly Humberstone played a faultless set of indie-pop magic. Over at the Main Stage, the Irish showed up, with Niall Horan having the crowd in tears over his beautiful performance of This Town, and CMAT got everyone doing the viral ‘Take A Sexy Picture Of Me’.
Sunday’s headliner, one of the most successful artists of the past twelve months, Olivia Dean, took centre stage and dominated the event. Olivia played an array of tracks, such as ‘Man I Need’ and ‘So Easy', from her Brit-winning album ‘The Art of Loving', and she had everyone in the crowd fixated on her.
This year's festival was female dominated across every single day and every single genre and serves as a reminder of why this festival remains one of the BBC’s most beloved annual events.
