The third edition of the Cambridge based Strawberries and Creem Festival kicked of this weekend at Haggis farm, making way for a new music scene to hit the academic city.
Strawberries and Creem festival housed huge names within the RnB and grime industries including Kano and US rapper Nelly as its headline act. The festival, which attracted over 5000 music fanatics from all over the country invited CelebMix along, and we can honestly say it was one of the most fun-filled days we’ve had in a while!
The action kicked off at 2pm with Kano delivering an energetic set with both his older tracks and his more recent tracks of his latest album ‘Made in the Manor’. It was obvious that the crowd were loving his set as nobody was letting the looming bad weather spoil their day!
Elsewhere in the busy, yet not overcrowded grounds the Strawberry Tent offered drum ‘n’ bass sounds and the sandy Beach DJ kept the modern festival alive by playing mainstream disco music whilst the festival goers could enjoy the sunshine on the man-made beach. Even the football fans were kept happy as a big screen showed England’s Euro draw against Russia!
We certainly were not disappointed by the catering on the day with a wide selection of food and drink to choose from- we had some spicy curly fries and the essential strawberries and cream. The drinks from the bars came in a reusable cup which allowed you to have discounts on drinks afterwards and have a memento to take home and remember the day by which we thought was a nice touch.
At around 5pm headliner Nelly took to the stage as fans swapped their wine for beer to watch the US rapper perform to the most enthusiastic crowd of the day so far! The festival was a UK festival exclusive and included crowd pleasers such as ‘hot in here’ and ‘dilemma’. All in all Nelly had a fantastic set which wasn’t to be missed, despite his 5pm set, everyone had arrived at the festival in time as the gates shut at 3pm meaning nobody would miss out on the action!
One of our highlights of the day has to include the stallholders, we’re pretty sure we bought something from every stall, whether is be a festival must have flower crown or glitter lips (which we loved)!
After all this there was still time for a spectacular performance from grime star Big Narstie whose drum and bass based music kicked off a mosh pit and UK urban music stars Crazy Cousinz played a set which included everything from grime and garage to every house tune from the past decade.
The day came to an end with David Rodigan and Kurupt FM giving the crowds the chance to get rid of all their excess energy through dancing the night away before everyone made their trip home. As always with a festival, there was the struggle of transport issues, but this was expected due to its semi-rural location which had no direct access to transport links. However, this didn’t spoil the day in the slightest and many folks continued to dance the night away whilst waiting for a taxi!
It’s safe to say Strawberries and Creem reinforced the fact that you don’t need to go to one of the mainstream festivals such as VFest of Glastonbury- you can have as much fun at smaller festivals.
Although for us, we still think of Cambridge as an academic city, but we do predict big things for the Strawberries and Creem festival and who knows, maybe in the next few years we will be thinking of Cambridge as one of the best places for music outside of London!
CelebMix just want to say a huge thank you to Strawberries and Creem for inviting us along for the day, we had an amazing time and we hope to see you all again next year!