Wireless Festival 2014 saw some of the world’s biggest Pop and Hip-Hop stars perform inside London’s Finsbury Park and Birmingham’s Perry Park. The 3 day festival will live long in our memories as artists like Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, Outkast and many more gave performances of a life time to the thousands of loyal fans. Sadly, Canadian rapper, and world superstar, Drake was set to Headline the Friday in Birmingham and Saturday in London but had to withdraw due to illness. It was obvious that his presence was missed but Wireless made it up to festivals goers in Birmingham with a reduction on their friday ticket and a longer set from Rudimental, and London was granted another night with Yeezus himself on the main stage. Despite the absence of Drizzy the weekend festival was a success in both Finsbury and Perry Park with music still ringing in our ears.
All that is left is us now wondering how Wireless plan to out do themselves. Until they do read what we thought of the performances.
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Friday 4th July
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It safe to say Chicago rapper Vic Mensa did not hold back when it came to performing on the Main Stage at this year Wireless festival. Vic late last year released his huge mixtape ‘Innanetape‘ which helped him smash into the music limelight and was recognised soon after by XXL and featured in the 2014 Freshman list. In the early part of 2014 Vic Mensa toured the UK with Danny Brown, and it can be argued that maybe Danny taught him some tricks as Vic half through his set brought out a blow up doll that oddly enough got the London crowd going. Who are we to judge?
All blow up dolls and jokes aside, the one thing the 21 year old did have was a gigantic stage presents. The petite crowd due to his early set time, seemed to give Vic more of a motive to give a hugely energetic performance which the low numbered crowd responded well to.
Vic created buzz around the main stage by dropping rare track ‘Down On My Luck’; a house influenced instrumental. This was clearly a highlight for some of the crowd but the lack of knowledge about Vic Mensa from the majority of the crowd was the biggest barrier between artist and fan. Regardless, great performance from the Chicago artist.
4/5
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The Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (OFWGKTA) member and rapper is small in stature but certainly filled the stage, his rapping style was fast but slowed down on the hooks which gave a good mixture to the tent that filled up more and more as the set went on. Earl Sweatshirt told the audience that they are: “Weak as F***” and that they needed to start going crazy and let loose which the crowd certainly obliged and mosh pits were created towards the end of his set. Joined on stage by Taco Bennett who was his DJ for the whole set and their chemistry obviously helped to what was an impressive performance.
3/5
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Azelia is an artist that can be very hit and miss. She certainly has charisma though, and her outfit today screamed personality as she looked like a pink power ranger. However with all that charisma and showmanship her performance was hard to mirror. Her major hit ‘212’ obviously got all fans going but the rain that started as her set began put many casual fans off and only the die hard fans seemed to stay. It was difficult to understand what the New York born rappers lyrics and rhymes were about and the energetic backing beat was the only salvation to the set. All in all it was a below average performance from Azelia but we can’t see this being a recurring problem and hope this was just a blip in her rise to the top of the female rap game.
2/5
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Tinie Tempah | Main Stage, Finsbury Park, London | Reviewer: Josh Pratt
Hated by some, but loved by nearly everyone at the Main Stage today, London’s very own Tinie Tempah smashed it. It’s been a Long time since Tinie rapped about shanking and robbing, and his updated image of life, luxury and beautiful women has bought Tinie huge success and saw him being one of the few artists who managed to get the lifeless crowd today on their feet.
The pop festival crowd responded to his major chart hits like it was their national anthem with song like Pass Out, Frisky and Trampoline being yelled at the top of people’s voices. This performance changed a lot people’s opinions on Tinie Tempah as his connection with the crowd was very apparent and people were responsive towards him making a great atmosphere. Tinie did a great job and reinforced why he is currently at the top of the game.
4/5
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Wiz came out to some very loud and excitable fans, with a lot of girls swooning, and it seemed like a very typical Wiz performance with his iconic laugh present throughout. Giving the fans some profound words of wisdom mid-set, he tells the crowd they could be “anything they wanted to be” and he believed in every one of them. A nice touch which made the crowd scream and was contrasted with his asking if any of the crowd smoked weed, which was also met with jeers.
He performed through his hits such as “Roll Up” and “Work hard, Play hard”, as well as rapping his verse to Will.I.Am’s “Feeling myself”, and finished the set with “Taylor Gang” to which his whole entourage and Taylor Gang members came on to bounce and dance.
3.5/5
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The legendary Pharrell Williams took to the stage to perform some of his greatest hits, kicking it all off with “Lose Yourself To Dance”. Playing timeless classics thought his set such as “Lap Dance” and “Drop It Like It’s Hot”, Pharrell performed to perfection, and his setlist created a feel-good summer vibe which was perfect for the weather. Almost every song he performed started a huge sing-along leaving Williams stunned, and there were many times when he just stood there to take it all in with a massive smile on his face. ‘Get Lucky’ and ‘Blurred Lines’ were certainly the biggest crowd pleasers of the day and got everyone dancing, and the set was choreographed brilliantly with his backing dancers.
Pharrell provided a brilliant hour of entertainment for the crowd and definitely set the bar high for the rest of the acts. Wrapping up his performance, he finished his set with ‘Happy’ leaving everyone feeling, well… happy!
4/5
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Rudimental took the Friday headline slot due to Drake’s absence in Birmingham, and although the set was a strong one, you couldn’t help but be a little disappointed that the initial headliner was cancelled. Wireless thought fast and compensated ticket holders offering £20 food an beverage vouchers, however, Rudimental were missing that charisma and showmanship which usually accompanies a big headline act. The attendance was the lowest in comparison to the other two headliners in Bruno Mars and Kanye West and unfortunately for Rudimental, the challenge of performing to a disappointed crowd was arguably too big a task.
2/5
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They’re two types of Kanye West fan, the fans who love Kanye for the song ‘Gold Digger’ and the fans who’ll stick up for Kanye even if the President of America calls him a jack ass. These two types of fans were very clearly divided on Kanye West’s performance in Finsbury Park. Boos and jeers came from small pockets of the crowd (Gold Digger fans) where the rest of the crowd appreciated the performance of the crazy genius.
When reviewing Kanye West you do not just look at the tracks he performed, you have to look at the set as a production. Wireless Festival didn’t compliment the production of the Yeezus Tour as the stage was way to small compared to previous shows and Kanye looked like a cage animal at times as he covered every single inch of the stage. However, this took nothing away from his energy and visuals and the 3D back drop imitated some of the stages we had seen on the Yeezus Tour.
One stand out moment worth mentioning saw visuals of a waterfall come on to the 3D screen and smoke covering the stage, at that point rain started to fall from the sky and we almost believed he was a god. Kanye cares so much about his production that he stopped performing his hit song ‘Touch The Sky’ to tell the cameraman which camera angle of himself he wanted people to see on the big screens. The only moments within the visuals that you could call ‘standard’ were the simple, but hugely effective, fast cuts as he the screens inverted their colours. Simple, but perfectly complimented Yeezus.
The division of the fans came when Kanye spoke to the crowd for 15 minutes straight to instrumental of Runaway. The ‘rant’ was Kanye trying to explain himself to fans and trying to make them understand him as person. He mentioned about his struggle to get where he is, his constant battle with the media and corporations, but most importantly provided the people in the crowd inspiration that he is proof of what they could be. Kanye then tried to translate his message by a commenting his on mask. He used the mask as a metaphor to prove it’s not about the artist, it’s about the art and music he’s provided for millions. Kanye summed this up as , “FUCK MY FACE!”. Even Kanye laughed at that one. For the Gold Digger fans this is where they piped up and thought they could insult the multi platinum album artist by booing him. They should have just appreciated the Kanye West experience.
Musically perfect, Kanye was faultless on the night. He’s the only artist in the world that can have his ‘fans’ boo him one moment and the next cry with joy from the music. An impressive balance of song choices as we dipped in out of albums from Kanye’s decade run in music was priceless. The classics were all there from ‘Through The Wire’ to his current hit ‘Bound 2’ and the drama was still there right up until the last song where he was told he had to hurry up and encore ‘Blood On The Leaves’. What did Yeezy do? Stop the song 3/4 of the way through the song and started it again, because he got told what to do.
Idiot, genius, diva or a god, all we know from that performance we will never see an artist like Kanye West headlining Wireless again… until Saturday anyways.
4.5/5
