Wild Life Festival returned to Shoreham, bringing with it some of the country’s hottest and most vital grime and pop stars along for a blistering weekend. The event continues to be curated by Disclosure and Rudimental, and the eclectic line-up was once again packed with acts who have strong links to the two bands.

Kicking off proceedings was East London rapper Stefflon Don, arriving on stage with plenty of attitude and laying the gauntlet down for the rest of the acts with a set full of quick wit and her sexually-charged raps. Having already worked with the likes of Drake, it’s unlikely that she will spend too much time opening festivals and is a sure bet to rise on the bill. Following on from her, Giggs flew through an adrenaline-charged set that had an already highly-fuelled crowd bouncing and moshing throughout. While Zara Larsson gave a highly polished performance, I headed into the Tropical tent where I had my mind blown by a succession of raucous and ferocious grime sets. Crazy Cousinz were responsible for more frenzied moshing during their warm-up set than I’ve seen in a lot of rock shows, followed by a stunning set from Scruffizer who was simply breath-taking in his power and performance. At its best, grime has all the same ingredients as punk music with its unpolished and feral delivery, and the West London MC packaged it all into a show full of vitality which left you speechless. Following him, J Hus took the crowd even higher with a set packed with tracks from his debut album Common Sense. By the end of his set, the scenes inside the Tropical tent had reached levels of utter and glorious madness.

Taking a slight breather, I checked out Chaka Khan while she gave a classic afternoon festival performance with faultless vocals only slightly spoiled by the swirling wind which rushed across the venue all through the day. Back to the Tropical tent, where Wiley showed that the old ‘anger is an energy’ mantra still holds true with a savage set. Known as the godfather of grime, he seethed at the sound engineers due to an imperceptible problem with the monitor levels, and stalked from side to side of the stage spitting out his rhymes in epic style. Wiley may have been one of the original acts in the genre, but he remains incredibly relevant as an artist and his performance demonstrated everything great about the genre and was the highlight of day one for me. Neatly summing up Wild Life's eclectic nature, the three different headline acts rounded off a great day in their own ways. Jess Glynne was flawless, and her rise to the top ranks of pop queens seems complete with a hits-packed set. Meanwhile, JME delivered a ferocious set which capped off a storming day in the Tropical tent. It was perhaps fitting that the grime scene dominated proceedings on the day that election results showed a new youth movement coming through – #grime4corbyn was one of the biggest trending hashtags in the final weeks of the campaign, and there were several mentions of the election results throughout the day. Finally over at the DJ set, stunning light shows propelled electrifying sets from Rudimental and Fatboy Slim.

As day two began, you could tell that hangovers had kicked in and Liv Dawson took to the main stage to a near empty field and delivered a chilled-out set. Her voice is great, but the stage presence still needs working on and she didn't quite grab attention fully on this occasion. Following that, Rag‘n’Bone Man took to the stage for his second local show in the space of a few weeks. Literally flying in from the previous day’s IOW Festival, he is quickly becoming a stalwart of this year's festival scene. There is still nothing stale about his performance however, and it was another great display. Charming as ever, pulling attention to his dancing which has been described as being similar to "a dustbin" before dropping in a show-stopping 'Skin'. Stripped back to a simple piano track, that incredible voice brought goosebumps. Strangely, he was followed by Bonzai – a late replacement for Anne-Marie, and surely only higher in the bill because of scheduling issues. Having said that, her show was great and she was hypnotising to watch with her shock-red coloured dreadlocks swinging around throughout.

There was a definite difference in the number of options on day two, and the main stage dominated. Damian 'Bong' Marley took over the arena, and his set was a real treat. Marley stands up in his own right as a solo artist, with a familiar Wailers-style reggae sound bolstered by his more modern singing style. His spirit of fun was infectious, and when he dips into his father's back catalogue with covers of 'Exodus' and 'Could You Be Loved?', it became one of those joyous festival moments that everyone speaks about when they go back to work. That was a hard show to top as best of the weekend, but if anyone would then it was Stormzy. On his second show of the day, after performing in Birmingham earlier, he could only be described as a force of nature. Sprinting from side to side of the stage and never dropping a rhyme, he was unstoppable, delivering banger after banger. The energy from the crowd was incredible, with several moshpits breaking out. It was such a strong performance, so good that headliner Dizzee Rascal struggled to match it. Ultimately though, when you've got hits like 'Dance Wiv Me' and 'Bonkers' in your back pocket then a party is guaranteed. In that way he was a perfect festival closer, though perhaps not as relevant in 2017 as others on the bill.

Wild Life was great fun of course, and as hedonistic as every great festival should be. My only frustration was that the bill seemed too heavily front-loaded with almost too much to take in on the Friday and then a sparse bill on the Saturday. The formula may need some slight tweaking, with many acts returning for the second year out of three. It will be interesting to see how it progresses, and I for one am already looking forward to losing it in the grime tent when it returns.
Jamie Macmillan

Let me start off by saying that I don’t really like going to Wild Life for the music, it’s mostly not my kinds of stuff. I do like going because it’s a great location for a festival, great atmosphere and I alway have fun there. That’s not to say I hate all the music, each year there is a band which I never thought I’d like but enjoy seeing them at Wild Life. This year they tried something different and moved the festival a day earlier, on Friday and Saturday instead of finishing on the Sunday. Sod’s law came into play then with the double whammy of a general election being called the day before and the terror attack in Manchester which targeted youths at a concert. Because Wild Life does attract a lot of young people and a fair number of their audience may have got little sleep the night before watching the election results, along with it being a Friday, there seemed to be a lowish turn out on the Friday.

On the first day I arrived just as Pete Tong was in full swing on the WHP stage. I hung around there for a while as his mix of tunes nicely warmed me up for the festival. Then I decided to have a wander and see what else was going on. I poked my head into the Sounds Of The Future tent which today was dedicated to grime and rap type stuff, one of the genres that is not really my thing but the place was packed all night long so it was obvious they had the right bands there. Next up was the Elrow tent which pumped out the most hard core tunes all weekend. There was a great carnival feel in there with bright colours dancers and a sea of dancing people.

So then it was time to head to the main stage and see what was on and when I got there Zara Larsson was halfway through her set. I was not expecting to stay there long but it was good fun Europop music and I ended up really enjoying watching quite a bit of the set. Then I went for another wander checking out a bit of fringe areas of the festival including the Shoerham Allstars live stage, just in time for a bad cover, so swiftly moved onto the Cocktail Cocktail ‘stage’ which always has a great party around it. A bit more grime and techno from the tents before heading back to the main stage for Chaka Khan. The main stage was noticeably more compact this year and the sound for some of the acts seemed to really suffer. It was OK for those that just pumped out the bass but bands like Chaka Khan seemed to loose something, mainly the middle and top range music or vocals. Unfortunately it took away from their performance a bit but was still great to see them perform live.

The problems with the sound on the main stage bugged me through the George Ezra’s set too but seemed to work for Jess Glynne. Between these acts I floated around the festival and took in some of the acts around, Hannah Wants was good on the decks and even some of the grime stuff I saw was good. At the end of the night I was flagging a bit. Rudimental did not really do it for me on the decks at WHP so I called it a night and unfortunately missed the Fatboy set.

After a bit of a slow start on the day two I got to the festival as Bonzai were on the main stage, which meant I had missed the Rag‘n’Bone Man set, though Bonzai were good fun pop music that got me back into the mood. After a bit of that I went to see what else was on and as I got to the Sounds Of The Future tent there were some wonderfully bluesy guitar sounds coming out. Tom Misch was on stage with a band playing some lovely blues indie-rock type tunes. I settled down for a good half hour here soaking up the music in the summer sun. It sounded great through the speakers they had at that stage. There were plenty of guest musicians which helped keep the set fresh and interesting throughout. One of the unmissable acts of the weekend was Damian Marley, Bob Marley’s son, on the main stage. The crowd was huge for this and Saturday seemed to have a much bigger crowd than the Friday. Nothing better than a nice bit of reggae in the late afternoon sun and the crowd were like putty in his hands. After that it seems everyone headed to see Mura Masa and guests on the Sounds Of The Future stage. A dynamic and very enjoyable performance. Andy C wrapped up the Sounds Of The Future stage, packing out the place again and, I have to say, if I had to pick one place to spend the whole weekend it would have been in front of that stage, they have the best acts by far.

Wrapping up on the main stage were Stormzy then Dizzee Rascal who both drew a huge crowd and got everyone jumping around, raising their hands and partying till they dropped. The grand final was Disclosure, B2B, Armand Van Helden on the decks at the WHP stage and they pumped out some great tunes and kept me there later than I though I’d stay and, with the remainder of their set playing in the distance, I headed home.

I had a great time and Wild Life is a great festival but it seems like it’s still trying to find its feet. I do hope it works out a great formula that works well and continues with the nice mix of live music and DJ’s. This year I think they got the balance about right, it was just a shame that the sound on the main stage seemed sub-par some of the time, otherwise a perfect festival.

Jonski Mason.

Website: wildlifefestival.com

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