Festival X Rising was always going to be interesting because not only was it half the lineup Australia got, but it also had multiple last minute changes. About a week or so out from the festival the “outdoor summer festival” at Western Springs was moved indoors to Spark Arena which was believed to be due to poor ticket sales. This really upset a lot of punters. Then to add insult to injury, an hour before doors opened, Anna Lunoe cancelled due to illness.
I missed the first 2 acts, DJ Soraya and The Katayanagi Twins, due to the times. Being on a Thursday night and starting at 4pm was difficult for me due to working Full Time. I arrived before Lil Pump took the stage and I clearly wasn’t the only one arriving late with Spark Arena only being just under 1/3 full. I really thought Lil Pump and Juice Wrld would get a decent crowd but they really didn’t. I’ll give the crowd this, the ones that were there for them really got into the set.
I found Lil Pump a bit lack-lustre which was a bit of a bummer as I was quite looking forward to seeing his set. He used a lot of backing track and just jumped on here and there. He stood out with lots of visuals on the screen and the use of C02 and pyro. You also couldn’t help but notice the bright yellow Off-White tracksuit. Though it was a fun set and I got to hear ‘Gucci Gang’ live, it could have been so much better.
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Juice Wrld took the stage next and to be honest, after seeing Lil Pump, my hopes weren’t high. However Juice Wrld was a lot better. You could actually hear his vocals and like Lil Pump he also had visuals, C02 and pyro. It was a good performance and he seemed to be enjoying himself as well which I thought was great to see and added to the vibe of his whole performance.
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I didn’t see much of Tchami’s set as I am not a huge fan of DJ acts. I just personally can’t really get into them. But the crowd had really packed in by the time he took the stage with the arena about 3/4z full. There are no photos of his set due to media restrictions, however it must have been pretty crazy because when I came back into the room after, there was confetti on the floor and steamers hanging form the ceiling.
Finally came time for the headliner Calvin Harris. The arena was packed to the edges and everyone was ready. I could see the crowd were enjoying it and his set-up was impressive. He was perched on top of a huge booth of screens that played out visuals and he also had pyro, C02, fireworks etc. It was awesome to see him live doing his thing and the crowd was hot & high energy. I didn’t stay for his set as I personally found it quite boring as to me it was just him playing music with vocals played over the top. It wasn’t anything too exciting.
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Though I don’t think you were expected to like everyone as it was quite a varied lineup. They did somewhat cater to everyone, but it definitely needs to make a lot of improvements I think. Not necessarily the performers, they played their sets on-time and pretty well, more into the organisation of it all. Another thing I noticed which I thought was a bad decision was that there were only 2 bars downstairs and if you wanted food you had to go upstairs. However this crowd didn’t really want to trek upstairs for food which led to people getting pretty intoxicated. In regards to the VIP area, I personally don’t think it was worth what they paid for from appearances but I haven’t heard anyone complain as of yet.
It will be interesting to see if they bring it back next year.
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