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| Creamfields
Dance Festival 2003 |
Date:
Saturday
23rd August 2003
Address: Old
Liverpool Airfield, Speke Boulevard, Speke, Liverpool,
Merseyside
Occurrence: Yearly
Hours: 3pm
- 6am
Ticket Price: £47+
booking fee
Dress Code: N/A
Capacity: 40,000 |
“Its 3pm, Saturday
23rd August, and the countdown has begun for the
opening of the flagship event of the world’s
most important dance festival. It’s THE festival
that closes the summer, it’s THE last chance
for us to tribal dance in a field under the stars
for another year…welcome to Creamfields!
Creamfields situated on Liverpools Old Airport site,
is next door to the new John Lennon Airport, this
seemed to have been taken full advantage of by a
number of international visitors who flew in from
across the world to attend, I met a hilarious group
of Swedes that had been travelling for 23 hours
just to get here. The roads lead us straight into
Speke and carried us straight to the gates, like
the yellow brick road taking us to the mystical
“land of Oz” with its stunning backdrop
of Liverpool’s historic River Mersey, which
has been timelessly credited in many a song over
the decades.
The gates opened bang on 3pm, with the jovial crowds
making their way down the 15 aisle security guarded
gates. The first thing noticed when on site was
the smell of excitement and the intense atmosphere
that was to set the standard for the rest of the
day. Earlier in the morning it had began to drizzle,
but by noon it had cleared, the sun came out and
the temperature remained hot throughout the day.
An enormous 35,000 people attended this year’s
Creamfields festival in Liverpool over the August
Bank holiday weekend. With a fantastic crowd, fantastic
weather and a unique and unbeatable line up, this
year’s festival was sprinkled with magic dust
sprinkled.
Throughout the day, we took advantage of the amenities
on offer, including the fun fair (not for the faint
hearted), the luxuriously surrounded Strongbow rooms
and Aftershock making its debut at the festival
with a zingy show hosted by the infamous Eduardo,
and his bunch of cheeky ladies who managed to draw
the biggest ‘male’ crowd of the day
as they flaunted their talents pole dancing! This
year’s charity football, in aid of World DJ
Day, also drew the crowds with teams from Brookside
boys & girls, Hollyoaks, Mixmag, Cream and more.
However, it was the final that brought tension to
the otherwise friendly match, for the 2nd year on
the run, Cream & Brookside boys battled it out
on the pitch for the championship cup, despite a
well played game from both sides, it was the the
fancy footwork and impressive skill that helped
the Cream Team become the undisputed champions for
the 4th year on the run. Despite retorts of it being
a fix, the atmosphere lifted as the cup was presented,
and a voluptuous streaker sprinted her way across
the pitch! Class!
We dipped in and out of all 10 arenas throughout
the day to gear up for arrival of Massive Attack.
They arrived on stage at 9pm for their highly anticipated
live performance and they didn’t disappoint
us. As they performed some of their new and old
tracks, it was their timeless classic 'Unfinished
Sympathy' which became the soundtrack for Creamfields,
that coupled with the sea of what looked like 30,000
odd people singing in chorus to the track, that
deservedly so still remains THE best dance track
of all time, will remain a spine tingling memory
for a long time to come. One might say this was
a tough act to follow, but not for Cream’s
prodigal son and master of the ceremonies Paul Oakenfold,
who closed the Main Stage and took to the stage
to a heroes welcom. According to the Radio 1 website
he described Creamfields as "possibly the most
important dance festival in the world", who
are we to argue.
The Radio 1 Outdoor stage proved more popular than
ever, being broadcast throughout the day from various
shows, on the car journey down we heard Nemone opening
the festival, she was followed by Dave Pearce who
set the standard and the tempo for the day ahead,
followed by Judge Jules and Seb Fontaine who was
joined by guests MYNC Project & Armin Van Buuren.
Making its debut was the Radio 1 Essential Mix Arena,
hosted by Pete Tong. This arena was rammed from
start to finish featuring heavyweights such as Sasha,
Timo Maas, Steve Lawler, Hernan Cattaneo, James
Zabiela, Montana, Paul Bleasdale and Hyper. An injection
of Tongys dulcet tones at 1:45 prepping everyone
for broadcast across the nation at 2am, gave everyone
the adrenalin injection needed after 11 hours dancing
in a field. Following a masterful set from the man
like Sasha, the musical heavyweight handed over
the baton to Pete Tong who dropped in the awesome
‘No Stopping’ by M.A.N.D.Y, the place
erupted as he took the crowd to fever pitch, and
delivered one of the most exciting and interesting
sets of the night. Last years successful debut was
the addition of the Live Outdoor Stage, this years
successful addition was the Radio 1 Essential Mix
Arena – electric throughout with a melting
pot of musical talent to keep the crowd fixated,
we welcome its return I 2004!
We sprinted over to the Cream arena to check out
Paul Van Dyk who seemed to be entrancing his congregation
with the melodic tuneage hes become renowned for,
we also took in some of Tiesto’ set who proved
to the world why he’s No.1, with a mixed set
of emotional trance, not too hard and not too soft
with an offering of hands in the air lunacy in all
the right places.
Over in the Bugged Out! Arena, the Chemical Brothers
homecoming became one of our highlights of the night.
The superstar DJs performed an outstanding DJ set,
with a concoction of old and new tracks plus a dash
from their own repertoire, as the pounding techno
bass line reverberated across the arena and out
across the Mersey…residents in West Kirkby
must have been wondering ‘who are these Superstar
DJ’s and where are they going?’ Having
firmly taken root in the Bugged Out! Arena Dave
Clarke’s debut live set managed to live up
to all expectation, quite literally ripping the
roof off, performing 'The Wolf', 'The Compass' and
a number of tracks off his forthcoming album. In
fact he seemed to enjoy himself so much, that after
his set we spied him swigging neat vodka and busting
some moves in the Sunday Best Area – a lovely
sight if ever their was one!
We had heard all night from various smiley people
that the Subliminal Arena had been going off BIG
TIME, so we made our way over there for the last
few hours to check out Audio Bully’s Soundsystem.
They finished off their set with New Order’s
‘Blue Monday’ the perfect end to a perfect
day. There is a certain beauty about the last few
hours of any gig and this was no exception.
Following their set we began to make our decent
into the real world back up the yellow brick road
we’d skipped down hours earlier, we made our
way with ease and in the protective safety of Merseyside
police (who I have to say did exactly what they
said they’d do being a pleasant reassurance
rather than a hindrance) to the exit. It was an
awesome event, with an awesome crowd, that rounded
off an awesome Summer. However, according to the
Cream website its Creamfields Turkey on September
13th…so maybe the Summer hasn’t finished
after all….” |
Venue: 9
Music: 10
Crowd: 10
Sound System: 9
Total: 38 / 40
Rating:
Gold Award |
| Review courtesy of:
Cream
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