After one of the hottest and sunniest summers on record, it seemed inevitable that Bristol would eventually have to pay for it. FORWARDS drew the short straw, with the final festival weekend of August bringing everything from glorious sunshine to torrential sideways rain. But it barely put a dampener on what proved to be a triumphant fifth edition of the festival.
Across three days on Clifton Downs, FORWARDS delivered a brilliantly varied line-up and some genuinely world-class performances, with Lorde, Tems and Little Simz leading a weekend packed with memorable sets.
Friday belonged to Lorde, who topped the opening day’s bill with a polished headline set that drew one of the biggest crowds of the weekend. FORWARDS was running entirely on renewable energy for the first time, using green hydrogen power and mobile battery units, something that didn’t escape Lorde’s attention. Praising the festival’s efforts from the stage, she told the crowd that Bristol was her kind of place.
Saturday brought perhaps the strongest run of performances. Self Esteem turned the stage into a characteristically ambitious mixture of pop show, theatre and choreography, while a surprise appearance from Green Party leader Zack Polanski was warmly received by the crowd.
Wet Leg, though, were exceptional. Having seen them four times during this album cycle, this final date of their tour might have been the best of the lot. Rhian Teasdale told the crowd they had played more than 140 shows on the run, yet there was certainly no sense of a band limping towards the finish line. They sounded enormous.
If Saturday occasionally offered some respite from the weather, Sunday properly tested everyone’s waterproofing.
Princess Nokia provided one of the day’s more entertaining sets, including an unexpectedly considerate moment when, after spotting children in the front row, she announced she’d keep things family-friendly. Her subsequent language suggested that particular concession had fairly strict limits, but nobody seemed particularly concerned.
Viagra Boys brought their reliably chaotic energy to the East Stage, with an added bonus when Amy Taylor appeared for their duet. It was a perfect appetiser for what followed.
By the time Amyl and the Sniffers took to the stage, the rain was coming in almost horizontally. Plenty of bands could have been forgiven for being slightly deflated by the conditions. Amy Taylor and company appeared to take them as a challenge.
Taylor tore around the stage while a soaked crowd responded in kind, turning one of the worst spells of weather of the entire weekend into one of its best sets. There was something particularly fitting about watching Amyl and the Sniffers hammer through a ferocious punk show while Bristol was being battered by wind and rain. They were superb.
Little Simz was left with the job of closing the festival and delivered a confident headline performance worthy of the occasion, bringing three days on the Downs to a suitably impressive conclusion.
FORWARDS arguably drew the short straw in a summer that had provided weeks of almost absurdly good festival weather. Reading and Leeds suffered even worse conditions over the same weekend, but the weather ultimately became part of the story rather than something that ruined it. There were soaked crowds, sudden bursts of sunshine and plenty of people dancing regardless of what was falling out of the sky.
Five years in, FORWARDS continues to feel comfortably at home on the Downs. Even when the British summer finally remembers how it normally behaves.
