Festival Review: Parklife 2023
Scorching sun, tropical storms, and a plethora of music genres for Heaton Park’s 80,000 attendees to relish in. Parklife, like every year, is jam-packed with ravers, from students to grandparents and everyone in between.
This year, in terms of line-ups, Parklife definitely takes the crown for most diverse, with a rapper, Aitch, and alternative band, The 1975, as the headliners. It is evident homegrown talent was the way forward for Sacha Lord, the festival’s creator, as he took a step away from last year’s all-American headliners to this year’s Greater Manchester-born artists.
The festival's perfect ratio of DJs, to pop singers and legendary rappers, works well and although not seen regularly, sells the park out. This year’s sold-out event featured the likes of notable artists like Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, Self Esteem, and The Prodigy, as well as some up-and-coming artists like Raye, Girls Don’t Sync, Little Simz, Interplanetary Criminal, and of course, many more.
This year, the attendees felt very British drum and bass-oriented, with the ‘Worried About Henry’ tent resembling a tin of sardines, being constantly packed. With sets from DJs like Darkzy, Crucast, Shy FX, and Andy C.
The Parklife stage was the host for Rudimental, with excitement evident around the fans at the main stage, due to the four-piece not attending the festival since 2018. Despite the 26 degrees heat, the guys didn’t let the energy shift throughout the 45-minute set, whatsoever. In true garage fashion, they got the crowd riled up for the remainder of the Saturday evening, with their new track ‘Dancing Is Healing’ landing well with the mixed demographic audience. Ending their set with a very unexpected twist of their own reformed version of Natalie Imbruglia’s ‘Torn.’
As the sun came down and temperatures dropped to a more comfortable setting, Little Simz took to the Parklife stage, rocking a black tie and Prada sunglasses, swaggering around the stage, as usual. The 2022 Brit Award winner for best new artist proved to the faces amongst her just why she was so worthy of that title. “Manny sing this with me,” Simz said before a lot of her songs, but specifically just before she got the crowd involved during ‘Selfish’ and the last track of her set ‘Woman.’
The main stage was topped by headliner, Harrison Armstrong, also known as Aitch. Moston born and bred, the 23-year-old took to the stage, just as Man City, his club's rival team won the Champions League final, which for some reason seemed to bring a sarcastic yet playful mood out of the young rapper.
With the back drop an ode to Manchester, showing images of the skyline, between every song he made it very clear just how much he loves his hometown and the importance of headlining this festival meant to him. The order of his set is meticulously crafted, almost like a story of his life growing up in Manchester. All guiding to the very emotional second half of his set, in which he brought out a choir of children from Sale to help with the chorus of ‘Close to Home.’ He kept the emotions high during his songs that are dedicated to his younger sister Gracie who has Downs Syndrome, “Gracie thanks you all,” he says after performing his track ‘My G’ which features Ed Sheeran.
An Aitch set at his hometown couldn’t have been completed without a few special guests, and the audience was visibly pleased when AJ Tracey and ArrDee graced the stage.
Over on The Valley stage, Fred Again has manifestly come a long way since playing on the smaller Eat Your Own Ears stage last year. Although a completely different vibe to Aitch’s set and genre, it seemed as if Fred Again had managed to gain a bigger audience.
The multi-instrumentalist played a beautiful set with many fans’ favourites like Chanel and Rumble. Ending just slightly later than Aitch, he ended with ‘Billie (Loving Arms)’ and the lyrics seemed to continue ringing through audience members' brains as thousands of people screamed “Put your loving arms around me,” whilst making their way out of Heaton Park for the end of day one.
From a total show-stopper for an hour due to typical Manchester-style thunderstorms to the renowned Wu-Tang Clan and Nas bringing the sun back out, Sunday was a crazy day for all involved. It seemed to be the busiest of days, with a lot of girls having their usual festival outfits cursed by the bad weather, dampening many moods. However, this couldn’t stop everyone from making this day on the whole successful.
From the doors opening to the last act of the day, there was something to dance to, even during the storms, hundreds fled to the inside tents to stay dry and dance. However, before the storms occurred, Mella Dee, had crowds two-stepping away to his anthem, ‘Techno Disco Tool.’
Despite the show stop, Girls Don’t Sync, the female DJ collective still managed to get in a 30-minute, short but sick set over at the Parklife FM stage.
Post-storm, crowds were more eager than before to witness their favourite musicians, paving a perfect stage for Ben Helmsley, the electronic DJ to commence his 90-minute set at The Hangar stage. A crowd full of pre-teens sang along to his hit track ‘Erase Me,’ as the sun came back out almost in a biblical setting.
As the clock hit half past six, Wu-Tang made their way to the stage, for the second time in their career, with the last time being pre-covid. There were appearances from Ghostface, GZA, Inspectah Deck, U-God, and Masta Killa, all a bit older and rough around the edges than we have seen them before, however, they still managed a good shift, getting the crowd interacting with their biggest tunes like ‘Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing Ta F’wit.’
While the weekend came to an end, young, old, and every age in between fans of The 1975 waited eagerly for the Wilmslow-born band to make their entrance. There’s a lot of controversy around this band at the minute, but with the talent they hold, they used it perfectly to prove exactly why they deserved that headline slot.
Playing a mix of well-known tunes like ‘Somebody Else’ as well as the more fangirl-loving tunes like ‘I always wanna die (sometimes),’ the perfect mix of tunes to bring the festival to an end. Matty Healy even managed to throw a cover of the Backstreet Boys’ ‘I Want It That Way’ in for the people in the crowd who have no idea of Healy’s existence – not many people.
As the moon came up and the 2013 single ‘Sex’ finished the setlist off, it brought a lovely nostalgic feeling to the audience, despite the many teens in the audience crying. This ending felt like the perfect way to end the weekend, leaving many people walking away from that set bursting with different emotions.
Thirteen years after its first successful year, Parklife still manages to sell out, have huge, successful artists headline many different stages across the fields, and have something in store for fans of many genres. I don’t think it will be stopping any time soon. Manchester is home to one of the best festivals in the United Kingdom and it is here to stay.
Words by Lucy Holden
Photography by Richard Mukuze
