This weekend has had us wishing we were in London for Radio One Hackney Weekend – Jay-Z, Kasabian, Rhianna, Jack White, Swedish House Mafia, Nicki Minaj and more, in exchange for a free ticket handed in on entry. What’s great about this festival though, is that for us unlucky ticketless people, Radio 1’s Big Weekend embraces sharing – via the radio, the BBC website and on television, too. There’s something quite comforting in a festival from your living room and so we settled to watch a few bits and pieces alongside our weekend plans.
Across both days, a number of unannounced special guests and friends of artists jumped on stage to collaborate – perhaps the most talked about of the weekend being Rhianna appearing as part of Jay-Z’s headlining set on Saturday evening. Jay-z then returned the favour in joining Rhianna on stage during her set for a few three songs. It was ‘history… for the first time ever’ according to Rhianna, addressing her audience before introducing Jay-Z on stage for their first live duet of ‘Talk that Talk.’ He also joined her for ‘Run This Town’, and the hit that rocketed her to stardom ‘Umbrella’. Watch the videos HERE.
Jay-Z seemed to take command of the festival in that he also brought British rapper M.I.A on stage to perform her hit ‘Paper Planes’ in to as well as ‘Bad Girls’, and though she suffered from mic issues she performed undeterred and bowed out to allow Jay-Z to continue solo before his biggest surprise of the weekend – following his ‘Empire State of Mind’ closing performance, he left the stage as an American flag descended only to return with Kanye West – arms in the air and ready to tear through some of their ‘Watch the Throne’ tour material. The set went as follows:
- Otis
- Gotta Have It
- Who Gon’ Stop Me?
- No Church in the Wild
- Lift Off
- N****s in Paris x 2
Fancy watching the set? Click the image below.
And that isn’t all – across the weekend Hackney was also greeted with Jessie J bringing B.oB on stage to perform their hit ‘Price Tag’ together, Labrinth and Lost Prophets shared a stage to perform ‘Earthquake’ (to which Labrinth tweeted to say it was a privilege), before heading to Tinie Tempah to close his set with ‘Pass Out.’ Will.I.Am, carrying on from his stint on The Voice brought Tyler James on stage to perform Usher’s hit ‘OMG’, ending with his new single ‘This is Love’ feat. Eva Simons.
Perhaps the most poignant of all however was Leona Lewis. Despite being first on the billing, she received a strong reception from her Hackney crowd, keen to welcome her back to her home town. She collaborated with Wretch 32 for a cover of Diddy Dirty Money’s song ‘Coming Home’ before encouraging local music in bringing Hackney Empire’s Community Choir on stage for a beautiful performance of her cover of Snow Patrol’s ‘Run’. She truly embraced the message behind bringing the biggest free ticketed festival to Hackney this weekend and gave those with music in their hearts the opportunity to do what she loves to do best. A truly wonderful performance. Watch Leona HERE.
P.S. If you fancy winning some festival essentials you currently have a day left before our give-away closes! Enter here at: http://www.phestival.co.uk/2012/06/21/phestival-picks-festival-essentials/
