Music > Live Reviews

Symmetry Festival 2016

05/08/16

I was super excited for this years Symmetry Festival. Although the line-up wasn’t as impressive as last year I was sure it was going to be a brilliant weekend!

When we arrived on site after a lot of moaning and lugging around a LUDICROUS amount of luggage/food/beer we found a spot and pitched our tent. The layout was different this year with all the stalls condensed in to one row and the stages were shuffled around. As always there was intriguingly beautiful pieces of art and interesting decor around every corner. And same as last year the walkabouts that were floating around did not fail to intrigue and entertain the punters.

Project Storm was up in the forest surrounded by trippy trees decorated with neon fabrics and decorations. The Powerstation's (which I was most excited to see had grown since last year) overwhelming wall of soundsystem did not disappoint. Playing in here we had Dillinja, who was amazing, and Vandal who played on the Sunday night was probably the highlight of my weekend. He played a ton of new tunes and got everybody stomping and having a great time. Also in the Powerstation was the Born on Road takeover, ft Aries, Stivs & Kevin 373 with some crazy jungle!

Over on the Safire Stage we had the Piratones, who absolutely smashed it! It was a lovely set, they're always a great band to see live. Goldie Lookin’ Chain were the headline act on the Sunday playing the Safire stage. They were hilarious, and it was great fun. However I did find myself thinking, as I was standing there in the rain in a crowd of people chanting ‘ice ice dildo’, that perhaps it was a little disappointing that the headline act was a novelty act. But nevertheless they were amazing, funny and everything I expected.

The Clockwork Stage I didn’t actualy spend a lot of time at, but it looked very impressive this year, I did catch a bit of Dub Phyzix & Strategy’s set which was packed full of people and was brilliant.

The Lake Shack is where I spent a lot of time. General Levy was sadly a disappointment. He came on, he played Pull Up, Incredible and got everybody hyped, and then he started just rapping over pop songs which was not what I had come to see General Levy for.

With a Warrior Jungle take-over with Stivs, Upgrade, Vocoda, Oblivion and Ha-zb The Lake Shack really was the place to be though! I also managed to catch a really interesting set which consisted of a DJ and a violinist which was wicked but I didn’t catch what they were called! (the most annoying thing about rain and a paper programme eh!?) There was also a Sika Studios takeover - they bought through Devilman, Holly Flo Lightly and Boogieman. I was also blown away by Singa Tempa & Queen Addi too.

It was clear to see that a lot of effort went into putting it together and it looked amazing, from fire shows to a massive metal robot that shoots fire, they’d really gone all out. Even the family area looked much improved, actually entirely separated from the drunken punters. The Hot Damn! Tent was shaking the entire weekend playing some of the finest funk and soul, and of course the 24 hour Garage Girls were back blasting out basslines and squirting people with water guns!

Over all, I wasn’t as impressed by Symmetry as I was by last year. It was loads of fun, I had a great time, I can see that a lot of effort went into it and it did look amazing but for me I think the line-up could have been stronger. Having said that I had a great weekend and I really think if you’ve never been to Symmetry Festival before you definitely need to experience it at least once.

Big love to everyone that helped make it happen, I hope we see you next year! x