Reviews / Love Saves the Day
Review: Love Saves the Day 2022, Ashton Court – ‘A festival of two halves’
Love Saves the Day could not have felt more different between the first and second days of this year’s festival at Ashton Court, with the happiness of Thursday replaced by many disgruntled festivalgoers on Friday.
After a torrential downpour, the bars on site which had offered the best shelter from the rain were closed. Arlo Parks was unable to play due to water on her stage and many punters departed only for re-entry to be later introduced.
Getting wet at a festival are first world problems of course, but there were some serious issues at Love Saves the Day which organisers urgently need to fix.
is needed now More than ever
In a statement, organisers said that they were “really devastated to hear that so many of you didn’t have a good time (on Friday) and left the festival early. We put our heart and soul into Love Saves the Day all year round to ensure that everyone has a fantastic two days of music and dancing, so to know that many of you weren’t able to enjoy the show is heartbreaking.”
They said that they were “disheartened to hear reports of some security or staff who were unhelpful or aggressive” and that “fundamentally it would not be possible to provide cover for 30,000 people simultaneously during a biblical downpour without putting all the stages into tents and completely changing the whole identity of the festival”.
“Thursday did feel genuinely special and it is nothing short of heartbreaking that the weather on Friday had such a negative impact on the show and your enjoyment. Big love to all who stuck it out, as well as those who got dried off and came back to join us for an epic set at the end of a very emotional day.
“We are starting work now to ensure we do everything we can to improve the show at its new home for 2023.”
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But back to Thursday and the tenth anniversary of Love Saves the Day brought more stages and more artists than ever before over the first two days of the jubilee weekend.
Offering perhaps one of their most inclusive festivals to date, the event had female urinals, free drinking water on taps around the site, and a whole host of veggie and vegan food stalls.
We headed to the site on Thursday afternoon and after a long walk from the entrance to Ashton Court to the entrance of the site, we headed straight to the bar.
Catching our first act on the Brouhaha stage, along with half of the festival it seemed, we watched Sub Focus providing all of the drum and bass tunes. It was unfortunate that some of his set was really hard to hear due to the sound at the Brouhaha stage, we could hardly hear his final track – and my favourite – Tidal Waves which was disappointing.
We headed over to the Paradiso stage next for Radio 1 DJ Arielle Free‘s set. Providing one of the funkiest sets under the sunshine, Free promised to get us ready for Patrick Topping and Eats Everything later that day, and she most certainty did.
People were thoroughly enjoying Arielle Free’s set on the Thursday afternoon – photo: Issy Packer
In an effort to hit every stage at the festival, we headed to Centre stage next to catch a snippet of Moxie’s set. The London DJ is proof that women need to be part of the electronic music industry. Remixing crowd favourites such as Madonna’s Vogue with her signature style made the crowd go mad and it was no surprise to see the stage packed for her entire set.
Continuing the female and funky vibes was Jayda G at the Love Saves Stage. One of my favourite sets of the day, it was obvious how much she was loving being back on stage and how much we loved watching her. Dancing along with her in the evening sunshine was an incredible feeling, one that had me longing for a summer full of these sorts of vibes.
On our quest to hit every stage, we headed to Lost Gardens to catch Luke Una’s DJ set. Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances, Una was to perform later in the day and instead we watched Felix Joy and Dave Harvey (one of the LSTD founders); this wasn’t an unwelcome change as the set continued to offer great tracks and beats to dance along to.
The Lost Gardens stage brought all the vibes for a sunny afternoon – photo: Plaster PR
Heading back to the Love Saves Stage, we caught a bit of Folamour‘s set while chomping down £14 pizza (!).
Encompassing everything you expect from LSTD, Folamour’s set was the perfect bank holiday vibes, drawing on a range of genres, including disco and funk, he had the whole crowd loving him and each other.
Folamour brought his funky hat and tracks to the Love Saves Stage. Credit: Issy Packer
We ended the night at the Paradiso stage to watch the Patrick Topping and Eats Everything collaboration. It was hard trying to decide between them, Bicep and Kurupt FM (unfortunately Blessed Madonna was unable to perform) but we were happy with our choice.
A match made in heaven, the DJs brought everything and more for the final performance of the night. Fusing their skills to create new sounds, beats and tracks that made the crowd go wild.
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Read more: 17 things to do in Bristol this week, June 6-12 2022
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The next day offered a slightly different feel to the festival and despite being only 24 hours apart, the days couldn’t have felt more polarised. To use the footballing cliché, it was a festival of two halves.
First on the now slightly soggy agenda was returning hero Shy FX, from whom there was not only the reggae roots and hard-hitting drum’n’bass lashings upon which Andre Williams built his name, but the twists and turns of dives into off-kilter hip-hop and RnB as heard on his 2019 mixtape Raggamuffin.
The set proved true to the Shy FX promise, that there are no dull dips or moments because no moment is around long enough to become so.
The rain was heavy by late afternoon, and you could hardly blame those who were dashing for the exits. For myself, it was gritted teeth, a poncho purchase and a trip to the Lonely Hearts Club stage for Priya Ragu, whose set was an equally diverse mix of rhythms, styles and textures. Songs ranged from the fierce and stomping to the breezy and delicate, though all were underpinned by Ragu’s captivating vocals which moved seamlessly between spouts of melodies and flows.
Ragu’s set proved the perfect set up for the Bristol-based Grove, who was delivering their compelling blend of genres on the Love Saves stage as evening set in. Grove provided those watching on with a very necessary energy boost, hammer-throwing their dancehall come-punk-come-jungle-come-pop into the air whilst thrashing around to it all with an absorbing volatility.
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As reward for the hardy souls who had remained through the seemingly endless spell of heavy rain, the skies began to clear, and after coming to terms with Arlo Parks’ disappointing weather enforced cancellation it was over to Shambarbers stage for Horse Meat Disco.
If, at 7pm, tiredness was beginning to settle in, then such thoughts were quickly erased. The Horse Meat boys provided 100 per cent feel good and 100 per cent disco to send us grinning into the final stages of the festival.
Although muddy under foot, those final hours proved worth sticking around for, and culminated in one last dash to the Lonely Hearts Club to join an excitable crowd for Andy C.
Not one to dilly dally, the drum’n’bass festival stalwart boomed into action with all the slap-in-the-face primality we are used to, whilst balancing the shellacking with mellower moments and build ups which sat poignantly in the end of festival atmosphere.
It was a blistering way to close proceedings, and less a cherry on top as much as it was a D’n’B gobstopper.
Andy C’s set was the perfect Friday night finale – photo: Fred Dodgson
While there was, in the face of intense downpours, a comedically fatalistic spirit in the air all day (mud slides, front crawling in puddles, bins used as shelter), many people felt their experience and the festival’s lack of preparation for adversity left a sour taste.
Lessons on that front will surely be learned, and as the hoards trudged back from whence they came at end of play on Friday there was more than an air of frustration towards the organisational shortcomings.
The distractions provided by the event’s super-strength lineup, the good humour of the remaining revellers and the festival’s otherworldly design meant that, despite the wet, the Friday of LSTD 2022 was not a complete wash-out.
Team Love’s future plans for the management of this ever-expanding, ever-changing Bristol behemoth will be an intriguing watch going forward.
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Main photo: Plaster PR
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