Wireless 2012: A Festival Review

By Destiny Kelleher-Corri

July 7, 2012

For months and months I had been waiting for Wireless to come around, and when I found out who was playing I just knew I had to go. I was lucky enough to get tickets for the Saturday of the festival–particularly good as I really wanted to see Drake.

Exiting Marble Arch Station, you could feel the electric atmosphere and hear the music blaring. The energy and excitement radiating from everyone was amazing. Sadly I arrived too late to catch Rita Ora, but I’ve heard her set was really good and she interacted well with the audience. In fact, the only negative comment people have made is that the set was too short. As she has only recently started releasing her music, I think that it’s pretty impressive that she was on the main stage. Hopefully in the future her name will be on the line-up as a headliner!

I arrived just in time for Wiz Khalifa’s set and it is fair to say that the air was filled with the pungent smell of herbs which became quite intoxicating after a while. Funnily enough Wiz actually noticed the smell from the stage and proceeded to say “hey, I can smell that. Aww that smells so good!” Wiz definitely didn’t disappoint all of his ‘Taylor Gang,’ putting in an extremely electric set which of course ended on ‘Black and Yellow,’ his first hit in the UK.

– Wiz Khalifa

The crowds were so tightly packed that it made it hard to move from stage to stage. We went to see The Weeknd at the Pepsi Max Stage. Unfortunately, the tent was so crammed that we had to leave before he came on stage. Luckily, there was a big screen outside the tent so we could watch him from instead.

Example was playing on the main stage and it is safe to say that it was literally like an outdoor rave. The crowd were going absolutely mental, creating numerous mosh pits and ending up covered in mud. My personal favourites were ‘Changed The Way You Kissed Me,’ ‘Kickstart,’ ‘Stay Awake’ and ‘We’ll Be Coming Back.’ A lot of people walked away from the performance covered in a fair bit sweat.

Nero was definitely one of the best acts of the day. They performed on the Pepsi Max stage and the tent was literally pitch black. What lacked in light was made up for with ridiculous amounts of strobing and smoke. Everywhere I looked there were dancing bodies in mosh pits. The crowd went particularly wild on hearing ‘Promises’ and ‘Innocence.’ When ‘Crush on You’ came on a few members of the crowd used it as an excuse to tell someone that they really liked them which I thought was sweet.

Nicki Minaj was 20 minutes late on stage but her set compensated for it. She opened up with the energetic ‘Roman Revenge’ which really got the crowd going, as did ‘Starships.’ I seemed to be surrounded by a group of girls gyrating when she sang ‘Gun Shot’ which definitely got some reactions from the guys in the crowd. Nicki really interacted well with the crowd and mentioned “how much [she] loves her UK Barbs!” Of course she finished with her popular number one hit ‘Super Bass.’

As the time approached for the headliner to come on, more and more people crammed into the limited space. Various people ended up having to leave or be carried away by security guards as people at the front were being squashed and trampled on before he even came on stage! To all the people that have been spreading rumours, I will clear this up now, DRAKE WAS THERE! He finally made an appearance after we were chanting for 10mins. The atmosphere was absolutely wild and amazing even though it was pouring down with rain. He interacted well with the crowd and kept us all thoroughly entertained. Drake comes across as one of the most sweet and humble people. You really get the impression that he knows that he is blessed to be where he is now, and that his fans mean the absolute world to him. Add this fact to the performance itself, and you couldn’t help but dance and just enjoy the moment.

– Drake