On Saturday the 24th and Sunday 25th of May, Love Saves The Day takes over Bristol’s Castle Park once again for a “bumper weekend of love”. Hit The Floor were there on Saturday to check out all the festival had to offer.
The queue stretched out as far as the eye could see. The average waiting time was about 1.5 hours, which had put a downer on moods by the time people reached the gate. Add heavy rain to the mix and you had a very unmotivated crowd, but this wasn’t an entrance to any ordinary festival, this was Love Saves The Day.
Around 4pm, we were scouting out the stages, which proved to be difficult. The signs could have been a little clearer to identify where things were, but we were soon able to find our bearings and navigate the slippery mud to the Just Jack stage. Moving around proved to be very difficult, but MR KS was working the crowd into a frenzy of excitement.
It is 5pm and at the main stage, where Maribou State was going back-to-back with Pedestrian, a set which has become quite common in festivals over the past few months. It was absolutely brilliant, but the main stage suffered from a very quiet, poor sound quality, which was a major disappointment in comparison to last year’s set-up.
Fortunately where the main stage lacked volume, the smaller stages made up. PBR Streetgang were absolutely killing it on the Futureboogie stage, which had seriously cool amounts of production, making for the best stage at the festival. By adding in some seriously funky disco music, a ‘not so muddy’ field, and a conveniently placed bar, which had made it a favourite for many.
As the evening hit, people were starting to get into the spirit of things. Mud was being flung into the air, as people started to enjoy themselves. This is what Love Saves The Day is all about and no amount of poor weather was going to stop the fun.
We attempted to check out Annie Mac on the main stage, but the sound sent us back to Just Jack, where Subb-an was finishing his set and the crowd were chanting for Nina Kraviz.
The Russian DJ was soon on stage and delivering a flawless set of pure Techno. The only thing stopping the crowd from being too crazy was the slippery floor, meaning any movement more than a sway would cause immediate descent!
9:15 and the heavens opened. The reaction was electric, as people hit the peak of their senses and Nina continued to deliver an exhilarating atmosphere. It was hard to pull away, but we simply couldn’t miss Bristolian Eats Everything back on the main stage.
It was hard to ignore the poor sound, but it really did put a downer on the set. Eats Everything delivered some amazing tunes, including a well received track of his own ‘Evil Tram’, but the bass just was not carrying through as it should have been. The main stage was almost definitely geared up towards bands and singers, which we saw more of in 2013 (these had seemingly been moved to the Sunday this year).
Despite the poor sound, the crowd were having an incredible time and got really into the festival spirit. The atmosphere for Loves Saves The Day is like no other and it’s for this reason it tops our list of favourite small festivals.
10pm and we headed over to the Futureboogie stage, where Todd Terje delivered a perfect set to round off the day. As he dropped one of his most popular tracks, ‘Inspector Norse’, everyone got into the disco spirit, throwing some serious shapes that made for one very memorable festival experience. We feel this stage really summed up the Love Saves The Day persona.
To summarise, Love Saves The Day pulled out all the stops to make the festival work, despite the torrential rain. The crowd were happy and the music was great, but the sound quality of the main stage was a severe let down.
