City Splash Festival 2014 was a huge festival, hosted at Camden’s superb Roundhouse venue, which celebrated the influence of sound system culture and Gigslutz were in attendance to see exactly what went down!
Even though this was the first year of City Splash, the organisers managed to get a huge line up of artists on board and although headline act Rickie Spice was unable to attend, due to unforeseen circumstances, there was plenty of amazing artists to enjoy including Gentleman’s Dub Club, Natty, The Mouse Outfit, not to mention the legendary Channel One sound system who provided the beats on the night through the impressive set up below.
There were numerous workshops throughout the day for attendees to participate in. These included…
The Dub Workshop
A master class designed to give young producers & emerging artists a more in depth insight into Dub & Bass Driven Music. The workshop covered the origins of dub, brief history of reggae dub, sound systems, dub engineering, multi track digital/ analogue recording techniques plus how to make good dub influenced beats using modern equipment.
Th DJ Workshop
Led by Dubwiser Dancehall with the emphasis on DUB/Reggae music. Spinning vinyl, Dubplates, CDJ’s & computer software via memory keys incorporating Mic Chanting, Toasting using FX’s & even live instruments!
The Dub Poetry Workshop
Aiming to immerse young people into an area that is relatively new to them and to give them inspiration and insight into new mediums of expression, the cultural exchange also allowed a platform for young people to intellectually grasp the rich heritage and variety of Dub Culture and the wisdom behind it, by looking at reggae and the people who do reggae in a respectful light.
With a huge crowd in attendance, the festival was a massive success and it was clear that the message of sound system culture and dub music had been spread far and wide. Whilst the workshops enabled people to learn about the culture and pick up new skills or practice old ones, the performers in the evening made sure that everyone present was able to enjoy the authentic sounds of dub and reggae music.
The evening’s two headline acts were both given hugely positive responses from the Roundhouse crowd and both Natty and Gentleman’s Dub Club expressed their gratitude at being given the opportunity to spread the musical love. Whilst Natty brought his trademark acoustic guitar with him and played a chilled set of his biggest tracks which included crowd favourite ‘Bedroom Eyes’, Gentleman’s Dub Club ensured the night ended on a huge buzz as they bounded around the stage with seemingly endless energy and got the crowd involved with tracks like ‘Emergency’, ‘High Grade’ and new track ‘Pressure’.
After the success that the City Splash Festival enjoyed this year we are eagerly anticipating the 2015 event which must somehow aim to be bigger and better than this years offering. Whether you were in attendance or not, check out our photo gallery below to see how the day went down and make sure you support the whole City Splash movement by following on Twitter and Facebook.
Matt Tarr
@MattTarrJourno
All photos courtesy of Lisa Wormsley
Matt Tarr
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