Bristol’s Motion Tests New Day Festival: Sequences

In blazing sunshine and without a cloud in the sky, the 23rd of July was the perfect day for a barbecue, a trip to the park, or to utilise Bristol’s Motion super-club’s expansive outdoor areas for a day music festival. Luckily for Sequences, that’s exactly what they did, in what was a well thought out and seamlessly executed event.

It seemed that the usual pitfalls often found at similar events had been carefully avoided. Although the queue to get in was long, it was fast moving and the search on entry not offensively intrusive. Toilets were plentiful and bars were everywhere, meaning less time wasted away from the music, and although there was not a huge selection of food, it was easily sufficient for the day. Most importantly though, the event was busy without being too rammed, which would have been a genuine health risk in the heat, on top of ruining the day.

As far as layout was concerned, a cavernous warehouse was surrounded by two courtyards, each with their own stage. The Blast occupied the front courtyard, Critical had the humid warehouse and Deep Medi the narrow back yard. The Marble Factory was used as a very welcome respite room, with two bars away from the blazing sun. Whilst the sound from the Void Incubus pumping out drum and bass was the pick of the systems, the best stage had to be the rear courtyard. The DJs and MCs were packed into a small scaffolding rig, surrounded on 3 sides by the crowd and speakers, meaning the acoustics were fantastic. It’s harder to get closer to the action.

Musical highlights were numerous. The familiar paring of Bristol’s own Redders and Sam Binga proved a popular combination and the MC’s almost non-stop flow at such an alarming pace was quite incredible. The set consisted of a combination of hits from Sam Binga’s album Wasted Days, including ‘Run the Dance’, and various underground classics that had been remixed and sped up; in other words, they had been Binga-d. These included Novelist’s ‘One Sec’, Zed Bias’ ‘Neighbourhood’ and Tessela’s ‘Hackney Parrot’. The outcome was a frantic but thoroughly contented crowd.

Sir Spyro made a somewhat surprising appearance on the Deep Medi stage and delivered a fairly predictable, but very enjoyable, grime set that included a string of VIP’d classics such as Danny Weed’s ‘Creeper’, Preditah’s ‘Circles’, Wiley’s ‘Eskimo’ and of course the unmistakable ‘Rhythm and Gash’. Added to the mix were his own anthems ‘Side by Side’ and ‘Top a Top’, which were given the customary reloads to let the onlookers recover from the temporary insanity always caused by these tracks.

Levelz continued to make friends across the country and dubbed the crowd honorary Mancunians in gratitude for their reception. There were some slight technical difficulties with so many mics at the same time (Chunky’s was pretty much inaudible, Skittles’ was very loud), but this was no problem as the inflatables, stage diving, track selection and general enthusiasm easily made up for it. The full entourage rattled off hits in the evening sun and their audience was visibly deflated when they were eventually chucked off stage to make way for the dub-plate prince, Riz La Teef.

Altogether, Sequences Festival was a well organised, creative and engaging event that must be given considerable credit, especially for a first attempt. We look forward to next year.

Organisation 8/10

Music 8/10

Site Setup 8/10

Festival Communication 6/10

Attention to Detail 6/10

Creative Content 6/10

Value for Money 7/10

Overall 8/10