Following a night of heavy lightning and thunder storms, day two of Wireless Festival felt like it was taking place on the sun. With less trouble than the previous day - there didn’t appear to be any groups of people kicking down gates to get in - the energy and overall feel at Finsbury Park yesterday was noticeably improved.
Split across three stages, opening acts for the day were KStewart, Ady Suleiman and Conor Maynard. Early stand outs came from Rudimental affiliate MNEK over at the Pepsi Max stage, which since Sunday’s Wireless 10 celebration had moved to the other side of the park (much to the annoyance of many fans having to rush their way through the thousands of people to avoid stage time clashes), and recent Janet Jackson BET Awards tribute artist Tinashe, who set the main stage on fire with her signature choreography and worldwide smash ‘2 On’.
Sticking with the main stage while the likes of Robin Schulz and upcoming UK soul starlet Etta Bond did their thing elsewhere, the queen of Hip Hop soul Mary J Blige quite literally took over Wireless Festival. Dressed in red with blonde bob on top, MJB looked incredible. While her birth certificate says she’s 44-years-old she doesn’t look a day over 30.
Straight into fifth gear from the get go, hits like ‘Love Is All We Need’ and ‘Real Love’, which saw Mary taking it back with some house party dance moves, had the crowd immediately eating out of the palm of her hand. Continuing on with a few oldies, she then showcased a few tracks from her latest offering The London Sessions, an album she recorded entirely in London with names such as Sam Smith and Disclosure. Put it this way, Mary’s set was so good it could have been a headlining performance.
The Capital Xtra Re:Wired stage took precedent for a couple of hours when the Bad Rabbits, an up and coming funk, Hip Hop and rock band from Boston with a co-sign from Teddy Riley, took to the stage followed by the beautiful and insanely talented Sinead Harnett, who aside from singing a few of her own records got the crowd hyped by singing over an array of UK dance/house classics.
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Then it was back to the Main Stage for two of America’s finest, Childish Gambino and Kendrick Lamar. With Childish up first, the rapper/singer/actor/screenwriter opened his set with his Because The Internet album opener ‘Crawl’. Feeling the heat like everybody else, it didn’t take him long before he took his shirt off and really stuck his foot in the ass of the Wireless crowd. Complete with some robotic dance moves, his energetic set that included tracks ‘Worldstar’ and ‘Bonfire’, was topped off with him jumping off the stage to interact with the front row fans.
When you mention the name Kendrick Lamar to any true Hip Hop fan their eyes light up and their ears perk up. Performing in the UK for the first time since the release of his critically acclaimed To Pimp A Butterfly album, Wireless was in for a treat. Accompanied by a live band and a perfectly timed rolling mini movie throughout his set, he kicked off proceedings with some fan favourites: ’Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe’, ‘Swimming Pools (Drank)’ and ‘Poetic Justice’, with a few newer cuts, such as ‘Alright’ and ‘i’ on the menu also. Chants of “King Kendrick” could be heard throughout the park and it was obvious to anyone present that the Compton rapper should have been the day’s headlining act.
Closing out day two of Wireless was Avicii. Perhaps a questionable decision being that the day had been all about sweaty energetic performances with vocals and choreography, and of course because of how good a job Kendrick Lamar did, the popular dance DJ sat atop of a colour-changing graphics cube commanding the 50,000 strong crowd with a slew of dance hits, including many of his own from his 2013 released album True. Button pushing, oversized party streamers and fireworks, the perfect ingredients to close out Independence Day at Wireless Festival.
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