We Are FSTVL kicked off the UK festival season in style.

It was a big one for the festival, which is now in its fifth year, as they opened the gates on Friday. They also added a campsite which encompassed thirty thousand ravers heading to the site in Upminster, Essex.

The site itself had changed from previous years and it definitely felt larger with more people in attendance and nine main stages on the site. They added a Terminal 1 stage right in the middle that towered over everything else, complete with 1200 lights and 10 lasers and fantastic production on stage that played host on the Saturday to MK, Craig David, Kurupt FM and more.

The sound system this year was spectacularly better than any other year I had been to – and I’ve been to them all. You couldn’t pick up sounds from other tents, and there was much better clarity. At the UKF tent (which was my favourite tent on the Saturday), the bass and music could be heard from all around it.

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The intimate Relentless Stage which was often heard blasting out Drake, had a feel good presence about it as revellers enjoyed the music in the sunshine and raved outside on the grass whilst looking up at the DJs who seemed to also be having a good time.

Kurupt FM played an entertaining hour set at Terminal 1 to a packed out stage. They were full of energy and predictably worked the crowd and played some garage classics.

Craig David’s TS5 set was a favourite on the Saturday with him DJ’ing and singing to an absolutely rammed stage. He mixed garage classics at first such as DJ Luck and MC Neat ‘With A Little Bit Of Luck’ and then headed over to a hip-hop side, playing Dr Dre and Eve’s ‘Whose That Girl’ then moving on to new tracks including J Hus’ ‘Did You See’. He mashed up the production singing his own lyrics over them before bringing some nostalgia with tracks from his first album too, which had everyone singing along.

Section Boyz killed their performance at the UKF stage, bouncing onto the stage with their DJ playing a mash-up of their tracks, the crew worked the audience like pros. They came to the front of the stage interacting with the audience performing tracks such as, ‘Trapping Ain’t Dead,’ and ‘Lock Arf.’

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Preditah was also at the UKF tent and had the crowd bubbling with a nice weighty set with some grime at first, and then moving slightly into the house direction. He played some classics such as Lethal Bizzle’s ‘Pow’ and Skepta’s ‘Shutdown’.

It was another successful year for the festival who cater for a wide varied music taste spanning from UK rap artists such as Mist and Giggs to house such as Carl Cox and MK; drum & bass tents hosted by UKF and Hospitality and grime acts such as Bugzy Malone and Wiley.

We Are FSTVL started the season in style.