Manchester’s favourite festival the Parklife weekender has returned for the fourth year running, this time dominating Heaton Park with 40,000 excited attendees! 

Showing off a line-up that has a stand out, great mixture of indie and dance acts, Parklife festival attracts a vast variety of festival attenders who prefer not to brave the weekend in a tent and live more for the daily, festival party experience.

Thousands arrived early on Saturday to celebrate the first day of the festival and to bask in the glorious sunshine. Great sets came from Rudimental who managed to gather the first impressive crowd gathering at the main stage. Performing a small but impressive set which saw the group performing hits from debut album ‘Home’,  including the chart storming single ‘Feel the Love’. Crowds and high-pitched screams came next for a band who are only destined for bigger things – The Maccabees. Performed a set worthy of headlining, the band played songs from all three albums making the set feel like a greatest hits run from  a tetchy ‘Feel to Follow’, a jolly ‘Can You Give It’ and a menacing ‘No Kind Words’.

First headliner of the weekend Plan B got the crowd in frenzy from the moment he arrived on stage. The rapper turned actor showed why he’s such demanded at festivals.  From the first song Ben Drew or otherwise known as Plan B had the audience in the palms of his hand and brought the much needed festival vibe to the Park life Weekender. Performing a number of hits from ‘Strickland Banks’ and latest release ‘Ill Manors’.  Songs such as ‘The Prince’ and ‘One Step Beyond’ went down a storm with the audience.  Concluding his set with the upbeat ‘Ill Manors’, caused moshing carnage amongst the festival site. However, despite the park closing, this wasn’t the end of Saturday night by no means, crowds rushed to Manchester’s city centre to continue the party at the several clubs hosting after party’s for the festival.

Matching the Saturday sunshine, Sunday prevailed on top and thousands returned to Heaton Park in order to catch the final day of the Parklife weekender. Heaton Park was filled to capacity and hardly any room was left to move around the festival grounds, proving the sheer popularity of this festival. In-between acts it was hard not to notice that the Nando’s takeaway van was dominating against other food providers, definitely, a new favourite for festival goers as queue’s were consistently wrapping around the site.

The first major crowd gathering of the day came for Iggy Azalea who run-riots round the main stage. Iggy from Australia, has been dominating the charts recently since debut single ‘Work’ was released.  Bursting onstage with enigmatic energy, Iggy threw out tracks such as ‘Pu$$y’ and ‘Bounce’ exploding the festival to life.

Up next on the main stage was Wretch 32 who also came packed with energy for the Park Life audience. The rapper was joined with a full band which helped boost his songs to reach a new high and certainly prevailed in giving an extra kick to the chart storming hit ‘Unorthodox’. Wretch 32’s appeal is consistently growing and as he knocks out hit after hit you can see why. Concluding his short set with ‘Tractor’ the crowd was certainly left wanting more from the London Rapper. 

With the sunshine drawing to its end and huge crowds trailing towards the main stage it could only mean that it was time for Rita Ora.  The atmosphere turned electric as the festival population screamed with excitement. Speakers blasted an introduction, teasing her appearance before Rita burst onto the stage performing latest single ‘Radioactive’. Dressed in a fun and quirky outfit, Rita introduced herself to the Parklife festival audience, before getting the crowd unanimously jumping as she launched into first U.K single and number  1 record ‘Hot Right Now’. This sizzling party track, released last February, propelled Roc Nation’s rising star into the sky, grabbing everyone’s attention on the way. 

Continuing the party vibe, Rita rocked the crowd back and forth with her second U.K number 1 single ‘How Do We (Party)’. Before concluding her set with crowd favourite ‘R.I.P’  getting the crowd geared up for the final headliner Example.

The biggest problem that occurred during Parklife Festival was major timing issues, causing clashes from other stages and leaving the audience battle out choices such as whether to catch DJ Fresh or Example.

Concluding the short weekend, Example arrivied onstage to thousands of screams as he rushed through a set packed with new and crowd favourite hits including ‘Kickstarts’,’Won’t Go Quietly’ and ‘Say Nothing’. Example is perfect for festivals and has no problem getting the crowd involved. Smoke machines and pyro made this set stand out more and really enticed a greater reaction from the 20,000 plus audience. Example concluded his set with ‘Changed the way you kissed me’ causing a deafening sing-along to end the weekend on a memorable high.

The Parklife weekender proved once again that it’s one of the most exciting and fresh festivals that the UK has to offer. There is just not enough time to soak up the variety of activities that the festival has to offer. With a staggering response from punters this year, hopefully the festival will look at introducing a Friday to complete the festival weekend in the following years!

Review and photos:  Mike Lewis