News / / 24.07.14

Lovebox

Victoria Park, London | 18+19 July

Lovebox is a pummelling reminder that however nice it might be nice to spend your time at a festival sat in a deck chair sipping Pimms and quietly anticipating Dara Ó Briain’s hour-long set of maths jokes, you might be better off huffing down whatever’s on offer and condensing a summer’s worth of partying into a single weekend.

Victoria Park teemed with Hurrache’d Essex boys and dour tech-house heads alike, voguing and popping to the judiciously chunky Rinse.FM house of Duke Dumont and Route 94. Others decided to let David Rodigan give them another one of his masterclasses in Jamaican music history. Crack went down the festival-flaneur route. There was no final destination – save for ensuring that we caught a typically on-form DJ EZ quick cutting between house and garage anthems under a sky so pregnant with electricity that it was a surprise we weren’t razed to the ground. Every corner turned up a treat: a mid-evening roller skate jam to Janet Jackson’s seminal All For You, a snatch of Theo Parrish’s fantastic live set here, a luckily brief dose of A$AP Rocky’s lumpen performance there, Annie Mac thumpin’ it out like only she does, a peak into Chase and Status’ big-top jump-up bassfest. As curfew approached, and we trudged over the bodies of over-partied revellers, the heaven’s opened. Friday night don’t ever let it end.

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We kicked Saturday off with newcomers Juce, who set the bar high with their soulful, 90s-obsessed pop: an ideal soundtrack for your first cider of the day. Next up, we witnessed 4/4 “supergroup” extraordinaire Visionquest‘s set on the Crack Stage succeed in getting feet moving good and proper before we dived over to the Red Bull Music Academy stage, where we indulged in some hands-in-the-air-praise-hallelujah dance moves ourselves during Soul Clap‘s slot.

It was Mount Kimbie, however, who really blew us away with their infallible set of deliciously moody-electronica. Legend of the day award, of course, went to Nas who performed Illmatic with ease, charisma and much much skill; giving the album the 20th birthday it deserved and leaving us wishing he’d play it again.

MIA wowed the crowds with her disarming energy, dance moves and (wo)man-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude. Love her or hate her, the fact that she is one of the best performers of our generation feels undeniable since that night. Never leaving the politics aside, she asked the crowd who’d been on the Free Gaza march earlier in the day before belting tracks like Bucky Done Gun, Bamboo Banga and Bad Girls out in to the cosmos. Inviting the crowd to invade the stage and dance with her for Boys was a classic, but well appreciated move. Sadly, however, her time at Lovebox was blighted by technical problems, and after giving it her best through Paper Planes with failing microphones and then failing speakers, she was ultimately defeated and cut the set short, declaring: “Lovebox we gots to go”, before dropping her mic and exiting the stage.

Victoria Park takes a real bashing in the summer months. From the double Field Day whammy to this; Lovebox, the bass-generating, neon-waving pop extravaganza that just so happened to fall on one of the hottest weekends of the year so far, it’s a small wonder there’s any grass left for revellers to laze on. We’ll meet you at the same place, same time, next year.

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loveboxfestival.com

Words: Josh Baines + Lucie Grace

Photography: Chlóe Rosolek

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