Friday Jams

After a three-year hiatus from the festival, it was quickly clear these fans were here to party, Monday be damned. The crowd at Friday Jams was ready for a ...

I came here to end with the best show of all of them,” he told the frenzied crowd at one stage before asking them to go “crazy”. The sound, positivity and absolute power of the performance of hits like Thrift Shop, Rise Up and Glorious gave the impression he would rather be nowhere else, and the crowd responded in like. That same crowd collectively lost its mind when he stood up (being held above the crowd) grabbed and waved one of many Samoan flags that made their way into the stadium and gave the crowd the best moment of the night so far. People were carried or stretchered into the medical tents as the evening hit and by the end of the night punters nearby had taken to dancing on the ground, when standing up became troublesome. “I didn't come here to fizzle out. But this crowd seemed happy, or maybe too drunk to care. But the true highlight was the incredible performance US rapper Macklemore, complete with his band of brass, drums, dancers and singers, all donned in green. And after singing on the barriers in front of the crowd the artist hid away his expensive-looking jewellery, hopped on the shoulders of security, and slowly made his way through the mass of fans to the centre of the crowd. Ashanti upped the quality of the show with a professional looking and sounding performance while Craig David’s replacement Jeremiah had the crowd singing along enthusiastically but seemed to suffer a few sound issues. The crowd did most of that for him while he held his mic out, and his shout-outs to the beautiful ladies, an overwhelming amount of siren sound effects and far too many yells of “New Zealand!” got old pretty quickly. But perhaps the most disappointing, and honesty confusing, set came from RnB star Shaggy who, despite getting the crowd fired up with Mr Boombastic seemed to quickly give up on the idea of singing much of anything for the rest of his set. The first of many cheesy lines and blown kisses to the crowd came from Jay Sean who, despite his rather wordy and cringey monologues, “It’s just me and my microphone, and my songs and I hope that’s enough for you because I’m here for you ...” he told the crowd, got the fans going with his hits Ride it and Down.