Music > Live Reviews
Saturday at Sundown 2017
Norfolk Showground
06/09/17
Sundown happened this weekend! It's still early days for them, festival wise, but like a good curry they're quickly maturing into a damn tasty festival. Sadly it took us a little longer than expected to get in, although once we were through the gates, got some saucy chips down our necks and finally left the bar with drinks, all of the entry faff was quickly forgotten.
I attended with a mate who claims to know zero about music, that is until the chorus kicks in. John Galea opened for the crowd, but Franko Fraize and his main lad Tone opened up for us. Those fellas know how to put a show on - I for one can't wait until they're headline the main stage which probably won't be that far off. John, I'm sure you were awesome, but I was stood at the box office while you were on, chap.
It was nice to see and hear Tom Grennan belt out When It All Goes Wrong, but sadly for him it seemed like the entire crowd including myself were still working on building up their festival vibes during his set. The crowd blossomed from locals at a fete to mellow festival goers with Raye's set. And then...it happened...Mista-FUCKING-Jam was delivered to the good people of Sundown and every booty at the main stage got boogieing. The man knows how to please people of all musically loves. I love him and now even my mate that knows no music loves him to. A mosh pit of the friendly variety broke out so close to us that it would have been rude not to partake. So we slammed our tipsy bodies into strangers, while laughing uncontrollably. My mate approved of mosh pits - her first time - and I fear for her safety at future gigs now. We nearly lost a phone, which I'm sure if you attended the festival a few years ago, you'll understand to be something massively detrimental to your day and/or weekend. But I shit you not, someone held it up to the crowd, shouted out "whose phone?", and then went a step further to make sure the right person was getting the phone...she was obviously a Norfolk good 'un.
The MistaJam high was indescribably hard to top for the next few acts - sorry guys, but it's MistaJam's fault - so we hit some fairground rides until Kurupt FM bounced out on stage. Now I may have spent the majority of their set, explaining to my mate exactly what they're all about...learning that she's never seen Spinal Tap and questioning our entire friendship...but I was dancing the whole time, so it's cool - we'll discuss this later.
We hit that stage of drunkenness where if your sober self could have a word with you, they'd deffo say "cool it with the drinks for a bit"...but we were alone with our drunken selves, so the silliness slurred on to apply us with more drinks. Rag'n'Bone Man hit the stage like a force and we surely ruined his set for everyone by singing along, possibly louder than him. Drunker than ever we decided it was an excellent idea to buy more drinks in preparation for Craig David's set...and it was awesome! Gotta admit that his return to the stage has made me a crazed fan this summer, and this was his best set yet. He busted out all greats, some new beats, the classics...and did some MistaJam-esque spinning. It had to be the best part of Sundown for me - not a single soul wasn't buzzing from that set. My skunk drunk amigo and I came to the sudden realisation that we were gonna have to get in a car and travel for half an hour home. We got some chicken noodles and made our way to meet our ride. To cut a long story short my buddy spent the entire journey calling our driver ' bald eagle' and my noodles only stayed down for 28 minutes. I'm already looking forward to next years Sundown!