As Saturday rolls around, its been raining overnight in London but as the afternoon hits, the clouds slowly make way for sun as we hit Finsbury Park for Wireless Festival again. As Drake cancelled, Kanye West will once again headline the London leg of Wireless and after yesterdays performance, we were hoping he might take note of the negative reviews and change things up today.
Running slightly late, a jewel encrusted mask wearing Kanye West kicks off with “Black Skinhead” and then into “I Don’t Like”. Kanye changes things up to pay tribute to Drake who can’t be here and his deejay spins out a few Drake hits which go down really well with the public of whom most are disappointed is not here. Kanye continues hit performance and his set is almost a replica of Friday night and we await the moment he begins his daily rant. As “Clique” kicks in, Kanye once again pauses for a moment before telling the crowd about his issues with the media and how they portray him. He then proceed’s to tell the crowd that they are “his clique”, and the music thunders back in as Yezzy finishes up this “Clique” verse. There was a pattern occurring as Kanye belts through “Can’t tell me nothing”, “New Slaves”, “Power”, “Stronger” & “Runaway”. Its at this point on Friday night Kanye kicked off his rant and the crowd was praying that he didn’t. However this is Kanye West and he does what he wants, regardless of the boos which can surely be heard up on the stage. As I stand by, numerous crowd goers begin to filter out stating, “I can’t believe he is doing it again”.
For me personally, the festival stage is not made for Kanye West, his sets belong in an arena. At a time when thousands have paid to hear good music, the last thing they want to deal with is a 10 minute rant.
Rant over Kanye West, he smashes through hits, “Diamonds from Sierra Leone”, “Jesus Walks”, “Touch the Sky”, “All of the Lights” & “Bound 2”.
Overall minus the rant, you can’t knock the performance that Kanye gives, its energetic and the crowd join in to rap and sing on all his songs.
The rest of the Wireless day is packed full of massive artists and we managed to catch Rudimental, Wiz Khalifa, Labrinth, Azealia Banks and more.
London’s own Rudimental brought their full stage production to the Wireless main stage and as the sun shone down on London, the lads from London trawled through their hits “Give You Up”, “Right Here”, “Free” and their massive smash hit “Feel the love”. Special guests John Newman and Ella Eyre joined the Rudimental boys on stage for “Not Giving In” and “Waiting All Nite” respectively.
Photo courtesty of Wireless Festival – Andrew Whitton
Wiz Khalifa brought his typical cool stage presence to the main stage and had heads bopping for the hour long set as he entertained the crowd with “Bout Me”, “Man of the Year”, “”GangBang”, “Roll Up”, “We Own It”, “Young Wild and Free” and crowd hitter “Black and Yellow”.
Another local London lad, Labrinth always knows how to work the crowd and he did just that at Finsbury Park. Always dressed to impress, Lab’s biggest tracks of the day are “Let the Sun Shine”, “Earthquake” and “Beneath Your Beautiful”.
Over in the Pepsi Max stage, the likes of Knife Party and Pretty Lights bring draw the electronic dance music fans to the tent. The Boombox stage also hosts D&B artist Wilkinson, as well as All About She, and girl group M.O.
So another day at Wireless Festival is over, and with Bruno Mars and Outkast to headline tomorrow there is still a hell of a lot to look forward to. See you in the park tomorrow!
Photo courtesy of Wireless Festival – Rachael Wright
