Festivals don’t get much bigger than The Biggest Weekend.
Everything about it is, quite simply, ginormous. There’s the enormous fairground claw ride that we’re told by the operator is ‘The Biggest In Europe’. There’s the site itself; an oft-muddy, sometimes soggy, but always-buzzing field in the heart of Swansea, a town that’s more accustomed to having students and football fans in its midst than it is global entertainment megastars. Then, of course, there’s the line-up. When we tell you that it was stacked, we mean that it was seriously stacked. After all, where else could you see two arena-straddling megastars, one former member of One Direction, and the guy who wrote the sound of last summer, all before three o’clock in the afternoon?
How could you not be impressed by that?
Naturally, once we saw how flippin’ brilliant that line-up was looking, we knew that we had to be there. So, dear reader, that’s precisely what we did. We came. We saw. We delivered some top-notch journalistic #SocialContent:
That’s not all we did, though
Above all else, we watched a hell of a lot of world-class live music. There are neither enough hours in the day, nor enough space on this page, to tell you in adequate depth about all the good stuff we witnessed over that sunny Swansea weekend; so, here are just a few of our highlights from BBC Radio 1’s Biggest Weekend 2018:
Years & Years have well and truly stepped it up a notch
We’ve always adored Olly Alexander and co., but it’s safe to say that they well and truly outdid themselves when they took to the main stage on the Saturday afternoon. Arriving complete with an arena-sized stage show, the trio rattled through a perfectly-choreographed set that included three costume changes, a crowd of leather-clad backing dancers, and frontman Olly being hoisted several metres into the air as he performed the title track from their forthcoming sophomore album, Palo Santo. It was bonkers, and brilliant, and possibly our highlight of the weekend – but, why would we ever expect anything less from Years & Years?
We forgot how many absolute bangers Jason Derulo has
God, has the man had some hits. After all, when you’ve only got time to play half of a song so huge that most artists would’ve killed for it, you know you must be doing something right. So, when he only belted out half of Don’t Wanna Go Home, we were a little disappointed; but, when he cut directly into Whatcha Say, we pretty quickly got over ourselves and resumed our (admittedly terrible) ‘cutting of shapes’. By the time he’d rattled through Ridin’ Solo, Wiggle, and Trumpets, we were counting ourselves seriously impressed; and, by the time he’d closed his set with a triumphant rendition of Want To Want Me, we found ourselves more than ready to bow down to pop’s unsung Deruler.
We can confirm that a Sam Smith set is more upbeat than it should be
We adore Sam Smith. Like, seriously: his songs have been with us through the good times and the bad times, and we’re more than willing to fight anybody who says that the guy isn’t one of the best male vocalists on the planet right now. Despite that, though, we just weren’t sure how well his excellent back catalogue would translate to a headline slot at the Biggest Weekend. Sure, he’s got more than enough hits to fill the slot – but, would it all just be a bit too… Well, gloomy?
Happily, dear reader, we’re able to report that a Sam Smith live set is a positively euphoric experience. Between airings of his numerous Properly Brilliant songs, he managed to find the time to share anecdotes about sneaking a ride on the aforementioned Biggest Fairground Claw In Europe, and to spread a lovely little message of ‘loving whoever you want to love’. We don’t know about you, but any set that includes a spiel about unity and a belt-it-loud rendition of Stay With Me is alright with us.
Shawn Mendes is BFFs with James Bay (and we never knew!)
Move over, Jay Z and Beyoncé: pop’s got a new power couple. Okay, so they’re not actually dating; but, we dare you to try and find a better bromance in music right now.
We mean, look at Shawn‘s face in the video thumbnail below. Just look at it. If that isn’t the face of a happy young man, then we’re not sure what is. The performance itself wasn’t half bad, either – after all, any clip that combines the formidable vocal talents of James Bay with a songwriter half as good as Shawn Mendes is probably going to be a pretty good watch. If we were being Proper Music Journalists, we’d note that James‘s husky vocal added something new to Shawn‘s clean-cut pop notes, and that the harmonies between the two men’s voices were perfect to the point of sublimity; but, as we’re all friends here, we’ll just tell you that it was really bloody good, and urge you to watch this clip now:
Panic! At The Disco covered Bohemian Rhapsody (and IT. WAS. EPIC.)
We don’t know about you, but we’re generally of the opinion that nobody should cover a Queen song. After all, who could ever better Freddie Mercury? Sure, you’ve got Adam Lambert, who’s currently smashing the hell out of another world tour as the frontman of Queen + Adam Lambert, but he’s got the approval of the original band: surely there can’t be anyone else who can pull off a Queen cover.
Well, dear reader, we’re going to have to admit that we were wrong. There is one other man on this planet who can do justice to covering a Freddie Mercury track, and his name is Brendon Urie. When he sat down at his piano on the Sunday evening and started playing the twinkling first notes of Bohemian Rhapsody, we’ll admit that we were a little skeptical; but, by the time the guitar breakdown came along, we found ourselves jumping up and down like madmen and screaming the lyrics with every fibre of our being. He smashed it.
We’ve always thought that Urie was one of the most talented vocalists in contemporary rock, but we had no idea that he could pull off a cover like that – and, judging by the roar of the crowd as the cover reached his climax, it’s safe to say that we weren’t the only ones who were impressed.
And we’re not sure if Florence Welch is from this planet, but her headline set was extraordinary
We’re just going to say this: we’re yet to be convinced that Florence from Florence + The Machine is totally human. We know, it sounds strange, but there’s certainly a part of us that thinks she might come from another planet: somewhere far away, probably presided over by Kate Bush, where young girls are taught to sing like their lives depend on it and any form of footwear is strictly forbidden.
Our thoughts on that matter may well have something to do with how flippin’ brilliant Florence‘s Sunday night headline set was, though. After all, how can one small person make such a glorious racket? Armed with some hefty backing from her multi-talented Machine, Florence rattled through a fifty-minute headline set that was packed full of more bangers than a Full English breakfast. You Got The Love was casually dropped into the middle of the set; a stripped-back run-through of Sweet Nothing sparked one of the loudest singalongs of the weekend; and set closer Shake It Out was capped off by a full-on firework display.
If that’s not a great way to close a set, then we’re not sure what it; and, most importantly, we couldn’t think of a better way to round off a thoroughly excellent Biggest Weekend.