She had the entire crowd singing along to ‘Pull Up To The Bumper, Baby’, and at one point clambered onto a security guards shoulders and wandered the length of the pit. Emerging onto the stage topless, with a skeleton painted on her body and a golden mask on her face, Grace Jones had a seemingly endless supply of costumes, changing in between every song. On at the perfect time, the middle of the day with the sun beaming down (did I mention that the weather was amazing?) she was as weird and wonderful as ever. Billed as Special Guest on the lineup, she lived up to that slot and then some. Next up has to be one of the highlights of the festival, the legend that is Grace Jones. Another hidden gem was Tei Shei, playing early on in the Sounds of the Near Future Tent to a woefully small crowd, her unique blend of shoegaze and indie pop sent the lucky few who caught her into a haze of dreamy goodness. If you get the chance, just go and see them. A particular highlight was their cover of TNGHT’s ‘Bugg’n’, which had the entire crowd on their feet jumping up and down. It’s almost impossible to explain what they were like – three musicians (and, for some songs, a tenor saxophone player) all at the top of their game and playing like their lives depended on it and loving every second. They’re truly uncategorisable, a mixture between experimental jazz, rock and electronic music. When three somewhat nerdy kids came onto the stage, I was even more confused, but the second they kicked into their set I knew I’d made the right decision to see them. Ghostface Killah even gave them a shout-out during the Wu-Tang set), but I really didn’t know what to expect before they came onstage. I’d heard great things about this band and particularly their live shows. Once inside the festival, I grabbed a beer and sat on the grass near the Ram Jam stage, enjoying the sunshine and the reggae stylings of Channel One Soundsytem before my eagerly anticipated first act, BadBadNotGood. Thankfully, this year there were few arrests, but our thoughts still go out to Robert Hart’s family. A special mention has to go out to the family of Robert Hart a year on from the tragedy, and it was heart warming to see that David Rodigan asked for a minutes silence for him, and the crowd of some 10,000 people obliged. Unfortunately, the drug use at Parklife was still fairly prevalent, despite the new precautions in place, including an honesty box placed before the gates, but it didn’t impact our festival experience in any way. The security this year was, understandably, much stricter than last year but luckily my friend was all clean so we got through without much fuss. Walking through the gates of the festival, my friend was pulled to the side by security as a sniffer dog had lingered around him for a little bit too long.
With the buzz of the first day still fresh, though, I had high hopes that I’d find something to my liking – and I wasn’t disappointed. When first scanning the lineup, day two didn’t hold quite the same pulling power as day one, and I found myself a bit disappointed that there wasn’t any stand-out acts. With sore feet and ears still ringing, I returned to Heaton Park for the second and final day of Parklife Festival. Melanie Smith provides photos for the conclusion of Parklife Festival. With a feast of acts on offer, including the highly anticipated FKA Twigs and hip-hop legend Nas, it was sure to be a great day. James Lowther returns to Heaton Park for Day Two of Parklife festival. This photo and all other photos on this page © Melanie Smith.