For me, the best way to get rid of it was to attend the Common People festival last weekend. Honestly, what better way to kick it off than with a trip to Norway and then a festival with no other than Craig David as the main headline – I’m not complaining!
Common People is a big music festival right on Southampton Common, so an ideal location for us students!
The main issue I have with festivals or similar events in England is that, most of the time, I have never heard of the main headline acts. House music is cool for a night out, but not what I would listen to during the day. There aren’t many artists I would go to a festival for. However, I’d go to a festival for Craig David. And so I did, last weekend when it was the Common People festival!
It was a weekend festival, but due to my student budget, I only went on the Saturday. Rumour has it that it was even more fun on the Sunday, but since I wasn’t there for that day, I will tell you about the Saturday.
Even though Craig David was the last act on, I got to see some other good bands like Public Enemy and Primal Scream, and it turns out I have heard their music by before without really realising it was them! It was a pleasant surprise to hear and see them live.
The festival itself started around 11 am, but we didn’t get there until around 5pm. Apparently, as I heard from other friends and later on read, there were massive queues to get in earlier in the day – luckily I didn’t have to queue for more than 10 minutes by the time I arrived. The queues for food and drink were very long, though, which was a bit of a disappointment, but probably typical for any festival.
The festival area itself was Southampton Common, which I’m sure most people here know quite well. They managed to fit a massive bouncy castle, a number of stages and over ten thousand people into the space without it feeling too cramped; I think it’s fair to conclude that it is a decent space for a festival!
Singing along to ‘Seven Days’ and ‘Fill Me In’ by Craig David live, was almost a bit surreal. When Craig David first had his breakthrough I was probably six or seven years old, but his songs have somehow always followed me and loads of my friends throughout our lives. I didn’t actually know he was a Southampton native until after I moved here, but as you might imagine, it was extra fun to see him live here in Southampton.
He described it as the most important show of his life and opened up the whole set by saying ‘It has never felt so good driving down the Avenue’. I personally couldn’t have had a better experience. He played all the good old hits, but also his new music and covers, which resulted in a good mix of everything, and a lot of fun!
I am already looking forward to going Common People next year and seeing which artist will be playing!
Alexandra
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