As many of us dust ourselves off from our winter hibernation and welcome the first inklings of summer, the first of many prominent outdoor festivals hit Sydney this October long weekend. Parklife has been running for seven years now, is hosted by Fuzzy and aims to present a diverse range of headlining acts across several stages. The location for this fantastic day is centered around Kippax Lake Park near the Fox studios complex. The event also holds the proud title of Sydney’s longest running outdoor dance event and apart from all the music on offer the event will feature markets, chill out areas, games, and plenty of room to simply lounge around on the grass. This year the event was split across three large stages featuring some massive names from around the world and many quality locals such as Nick Warren, Freestylers, Rennie Pilgrim, Hybrid, Sandy Rivera and many more.

After spending some quality time in the much appreciated morning sunshine downing beverages and just generally frolicking around our crew made a move to get to the event before more of the afternoon sneakily slips by. We arrived at the event just after 2pm and were lucky enough be able to walk from a friend’s house avoiding any of the usual hassles with parking, traffic and other such distractions. The area fenced off for the event was significantly larger this year and featured a large chillout area around the lake, the Bedouin Tent near Anzac Parade and then two larger stages spread out towards the Oxford St side of the park. Entry was quick and easy and before we knew it we had a drink in our hand and were checking out the many ‘sights’ and sounds on offer.

After settling in near the main stage the first set of the day for us came from one of Australia’s busiest breaks legends Kid Kenobi together with MC Shureshock on the main stage. Despite it being only 230pm in the afternoon the crowd was already quite large and going rather crazy to the bouncy breaks tunes in the sunshine. MC Shureshock’s characteristic voice and energetic antics also played a good part in hyping up the crowd kicking off the day for us nicely. After this we wandered off to see some of the deep and dreamy funk on offer from Kaskade in the North Tent. Here the vibe was smooth and relaxed as people grooved away to the nice and funky jazz flavoured tunes which was simply perfect for the hottest part of the day. As the Smirnoff Black Ices continued to flow so did the quality acts on offer and we also managed to catch the last half an hour of Ulgy Duckling who were rocking the main stage with their feelgood hip hop and clever rhymes.

Next up on the main stage was the godfather of the UK breaks sound Rennie Pilgrem together with the manically entertaining MC Chickaboo providing some great rolling vocals. This set was simply amazing and was one of the unexpected highlights, full of monstrous, dirty, rolling, tech-infused breaks. It was difficult to leave this stage however we meandered over to the Bedouin Tent near the lake to take in what was my favourite set of the day from Hybrid as the sun went down. This set was simply perfect and started off smoothly with some melodic prog and breaks before taking the vibe in a tougher and dirtier direction finally finishing with some huge tunes at the end such as their remix of Radiohead – Everything in its Right Place which topped it off perfectly.

As the evening set in we stumbled over to the Big North Tent to catch the set from Nick Warren who also delivered the goods with some storming progressive trance pumping out across the huge crowd. Follwing Nick Warren was house legend Sandy Rivera who rather messily strung together a slew of well known tracks, providing a fun and funky finish to the entertainment on this stage. The majority of the crowd seemed to be enjoying the tracks and atmosphere that anthems and popular trakcs like this create. Throughout his set he worked in The Killers – Mr Brightside, Deep Dish – Say Hello, a remix of Technotronic – Pump Up the Jam, Deep Dish – Flashdance, and the infamous Strings of Life. Towards the end of his set I decided to check out Tom Neville simply out of curiosity and it was a pity I did not do so earlier as this tent was going off to some fun, funky electro and minimal bass heavy tunes. However as the last tune finished and people started frantically trying to meet up with their friends the epic day had almost come to a close.

Overall, the event was an absolute success in my opinion and no doubt everyone witnessed a whole stack of good music, and other bizarre occurrences such as the appearance of a Panda on the dance floor, people jumping into the lake, ladies everywhere looking absolutely amazing (Go short shorts!!) to name a few. Fuzzy once again demonstrated their uncanny ability to organise the logistics of an event of this scale almost flawlessly. Luckily for all of us the weather was perfect, and gave us a small preview of the amazing summer to come. If you missed out and want to join in on the upcoming festival madness make sure to check out: http://www.fuzzy.com.au for more information on upcoming events from Fuzzy.