The Sunday showers failed to dampen the spirits at Creamfields’ Steel Yard festival, with thousands of Londoners descending on Victoria Park to hear the sounds of superstar DJs Axwell & Ingrosso.
Built around the Steel Yard, a 20-metre-high “superstructure” designed to put the crowd in the middle of the lightshow, the festival is a celebration of all things EDM.
Those in search of stone circles need not apply, but there was plenty to recommend about Sunday’s festivities: a multicultural crowd, an inclusive atmosphere and some great music.
It fell to Axwell & Ingrosso to provide the last of these, and the two former Swedish House Mafia men duly obliged. How Do You Feel Right Now was full of dancehall beats and dramatic synths; This Time had a chorus purpose-built for gigantic spaces. If an EDM makeover of Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody was cheesier than fondue, and the much-hyped Steel Yard structure about as immersive as an inch-deep puddle, the crowd didn’t seem to mind. From the front to the back, they sang and danced as one.
Ultimately, the audience rather than the artists were Sunday’s stars: against a backdrop of fear and bad weather, they came together to a create a day of all-for-one euphoria.
