Field Day: Sydney’s Crown Jewel [FESTIVAL REVIEW]

When I woke up on New Years Day, I was not prepared to attend a music festival. I hadn’t gotten much sleep and I felt like I had been put through a washing machine a few times. With the help of Tylenol and Gatorade and a lot encouragement from friends, I managed to get out of the house and down into the Central Business District of Sydney, where the annual Field Day music festival is held.

It’s a single day, three stage boutique festival. Don’t let it’s small size fool you, the Field Day organizers pack a ton of high-octane acts into their small performance window. With Flume, Golden Features, DJ Snake, and Schoolboy Q slated as headliners, this was going to be a big day, and with the help of the fifteen or so Australian lads that I spent New Year’s eve with, I entered the festival grounds around  2 pm.

The first set of my day was RTT favorite Enschway. He played on the smallest of the three stages, but he threw down an absolutely balls-to-the-wall set. His set was early, kicking off at 2:45, but that didn’t stop a massive crowd from jam packing the stage viewing area and beyond. He played crowd favorites like his anthem “Push Up” as well as unreleased collabs with Perto and Leotrix, and even played a special unreleased drum & bass remix of Golden Feature’s “Telescope.” I left the stage having sweat completely through my shirt and in need of a neck brace.

Photo Credit to Jake Lapham

My compatriots and I headed off to find some much needed food, and we were able to eat and watch trap lord Baauer tear up the main stage. After eating, we managed to get close-ish to the stage for grime legend Stormzy‘s set. I’d never seen a grime outside of the U.S., where it isn’t as big as it is in the U.K. or Australia, and it was a treat to be able to sing along to all of his music with people that knew the lyrics.

Photo Credit

A mere ten minutes after Stormzy exited the stage, Schoolboy Q came on in a rampage of sound, opening with his smash hit “Collard Greens” and the whole crowd all lost their minds at the same time. He played all his TDE homies’ music and left the stage having completely lost his voice from going so hard. It was incredible to witness.

Photo Credit

After a a quick dinner, I was lucky enough to get invited into Golden Feature’s private viewing area for his set. He’s in the process of wrapping up an album and had announced that Field Day attendees would be the first to hear tracks from it. He played a set jam packed with IDs and unreleased material, and the crowd would not stop screaming.

It was also the first time anyone got to see his new stage production and visuals which were absolutely breathtaking.

Photo Credit to Joel Tinker with MyMedia

To turn my already phenomenal day into arguably the perfect one, I was lucky enough to get invited by the legend Naderi to watch Flume play one of the last sets for the Skin sequence. The set wasn’t standard Flume though; he played lots of tracks from his debut album and brought out Vince Staples and Kucka for a rendition of their smash hit “Smoke & Retribution.” He even rinsed his edit of RL Grime’s “Core.”

Field Day 2018 was an incredibly polished, tightly run, and wildly fun event – top to bottom one of the most enjoyable festival experiences I’ve had in a few years. If you’re in the Sydney area, even in New South Wales in general, Field Day is a festival you simply cannot miss.

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Head over to our Staff Picks of Festivals if you need some inspiration of where to go in 2018!

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All uncredited photos to the respective artist’s Facebook pages.

Field Day: Sydney’s Crown Jewel [FESTIVAL REVIEW]