CLUB MTV | LIVE REVIEW
Singleton Park, Swansea, Sat 24 Sept
MTV is a title that anyone vaguely interested in the music world would recognise, so naturally when it was announced that the Club MTV tour would be visiting Swansea in late September, quite an excited stir resulted. The final updated poster confirmed that Singleton Park would play host and that the promoters had recruited seven arena-class acts – not including introductory local DJ Dave Aura who, given the opening hour while the public found a clear view of the main stage, delivered popular remixes of colossal tracks including MO’s Final Song, Major Lazer’s Light It Up and Years & Years’ Desire.
A great start to the festivities and with barely a breath taken, Bristol-based Redlight was ready to hit the throng hard with big tracks such as Lost In Your Love and an assortment of bass-governing cuts. Although losing slight connection with the listeners, overall the artist went on to persistently pump the deep underground pulse into the ears of all listening.
The gaps between acts remained brief, with Professor Green [below] receiving a warm welcome for his return. With no intention of coming back with a literal SFX bang, the underrated rapper instead blew the audience’s mind with an explosive performance: leaping from one side of the stage to the other, firing off emotion-fuelled verses and occasionally breaking badboy character with a cheeky smile to some very gracious fans. The heavens unfortunately opened as promised, but saturation was not nearly enough to take the crowd’s attention away from I Need You Tonight and the still very moving anthem Read All About It.
Those pressed up against the barrier brought some serious perseverance to the experience as rain continued to fall throughout the evening, throwing a squelchy mud blanket over the once-grassy open area, followed soon after by attendees attempting a successful slip n’ slide experience. Even those caked in dirt seemed happy, however, as the mighty Jonas Blue electrified the Welsh surroundings for the first time in his career, with big hit Fast Car making an inevitable and successful appearance.
Due to an unprecedented occurrence, Buzz was forced to leave the site early but was able to catch the drum’n’bass madness of Sigma, with Cameron Edwards unfortunately not in attendance but Joe Lenzi pushing the soaked spectators to their limits. Included in their evenings repertoire were foot stomping belters like their remix of Route 94 and Jess Glynne’s My Love, Coming Home and Changing, seemingly acting as a rain chant while the drops grew in magnitude.
Three things were clearly evident today: that every individual was freezing, drenched to the bone and loving every minute of Club MTV’s Swansea edition.
words and photos NATHAN ROACH