Since 2010, Parklife Festival has brought Manchester a mid-June weekend of music, mixing a heavily electronic-based lineup with pop, rap and indie rock headliners. In recent years, the festival has been plagued by weather difficulties: 2023 saw a tropical heat storm cancel Eliza Rose’s set, while wintry conditions the following year then meant that Doja Cat faced what can safely be assumed as the smallest crowd she’d experienced in a while. This year, however, the festival was back and better than ever, bringing Charli xcx, Jorja Smith, Confidence Man and more to Heaton Park for a series of memorable performances marking its fifteenth edition.
Faster Horses opened the Saturday of Parklife Festival with an early afternoon set, drawing an impressively sized and strikingly engaged crowd for the time slot. A highlight within his set came in the form of a remixed version of Koffee’s reggae and melodic pop fusion ‘Pull Up’ which saw hands thrown in the air: it was clear to see, by the time the Manchester-based DJ and producer left the decks, that he would be a hard act to beat. Scottish DJ sim0ne followed on the Matinée stage, however, also delivering a crowd-pleasing set, before Obskür provided another early highlight of the weekend at the Hangar stage with hits such as ‘I’ve Arrived’ and ‘Bayside’. Once the weekend was over, the Dublin duo revealed that over 15,000 people had attended their set, making it their biggest UK crowd yet.
Morgan Seatree appeared on the Magic Sky stage clad in a Manchester United shirt, and it quickly became evident how much the performance meant to him. When he was announced as an act on the lineup for 2025, Seatree took to Instagram to state that “My journey began here”, ending his post with “THIS ONE’S FOR MCR”. After releasing his remix of Florence + the Machine and Calvin Harris’ collaboration ‘Say My Name’ towards the end of last year, the DJ has had a huge year, racking up over seven million monthly listeners on Spotify and gracing stages around the world. This time, Seatree’s grandma briefly joined him on stage, cementing the importance of Parklife Festival for one of the UK’s top electronic artists.
Stopping off at Heaton Park amidst a busy schedule of summer festivals including BBC Radio One’s Big Weekend and Glastonbury, Jorja Smith provided a moment of calm amongst the chaos of Parklife Festival. Groups of friends could be seen atop The Valley stage’s famous hill, soaking up the music and the accompanying sunset, while others had wholesome moments in the crowd as the star seamlessly transitioned between her R&B and UK garage influences throughout.
Over on the Big Top tent, 4am Kru proved their position as one of jungle music’s current greats, bringing backing dancers along for the ride in a high-stamina, highly hyped hour-long set. Interplanetary Criminal then kept the energy up back at the Matineé stage, before Mochakk and PAWSA closed the Hangar for the day. The former is known for the variety of unique influences that can be found within his work, yet these didn’t seem to come across in a set which instead favoured odd choices that alienated the crowd, such as playing the Lipps Inc. hit ‘Funkytown’ in full.
PAWSA is undoubtedly one of the most sought-out names in today’s electronic music scene, but his popularity failed to transmit to the expected atmosphere for the first portion of his set: the London-based producer performed to a crowd that were mostly motionless until ‘TOO COOL TO BE CARELESS’, failing to properly pick up until his recent remix of The Adventures of Stevie V’s classic ‘Dirty Cash (Money Talks)’ was played towards the end of his time onstage.
DJ, producer and drag queen Jodie Harsh opened The Valley stage in a second Manchester appearance in the space of a month, playing to a gaggle of dedicated Charli xcx fans already waiting at the barrier. The set was similar to her performance as the support act for Kylie Minogue’s AO Arena shows, and just as entertaining, being filled with party classics from start to finish and warming the crowd for a day of dancing. A sea of phones greeted D.O.D. in the Big Top tent, although this was not to the detriment of his set’s atmosphere: the tent was packed out, leaving many unable to find their way in.
Surprisingly, D.O.D. was not the most overcrowded set of the weekend, as problems persisted throughout the Sunday evening at the Matinée stage, eventually culminating in the cancellation of Josh Baker and Chris Stussy’s sets. Many festival attendees were clearly devastated by this, taking to social media to voice their outrage that two of the world’s biggest producers were scheduled on such a small stage in the first place. Despite disappointment at the Matinée stage, The Valley provided the highlights of the day and the weekend as a whole from mid-afternoon onwards. Girls Don’t Sync, a collective of female DJs and producers made up of Matty Chiabi, Sophia Violet, Hannah Lynch and Gaia Ahuja (known onstage as G33) warmed the crowd up for an energetic evening. “When we first played Parklife four years ago we were on the tiny Captain Morgan stage”, they stated, noting that “we’ve worked our way up”.
It is impressive that Girls Don’t Sync have risen through the ranks so swiftly, but hardly shocking considering their sheer talent and electric stage presence. Every time Girls Don’t Sync perform, it feels like witnessing four best friends living out their dreams, making for a fun-filled, joyous experience paralleled by few other acts. The quartet paused frequently to utilise Charli xcx’s catwalk, throwing shirts, hand hearts and shots of Hennessy into the audience.
Returning to Manchester for the first time since their mind-blowing November tour in support of their latest album 3AM (LA LA LA), Confidence Man provided the Parklife audience with a regular dose of indie-electronica mixed with pure sex appeal. As usual, they put on a brilliantly engaging show, with front-duo Janet Planet and Sugar Bones performing intricate dance routines and departing the stage on multiple occasions for outfit changes. To the audience’s delight, Janet hopped atop Sugar’s shoulders for a rendition of ‘So What’, encouraging the crowd to do the same as they marched along the barrier.
After Peggy Gou provided an extended set of house and techno to prepare the crowd, the excitement was palpable as Charli xcx’s famed BRAT curtain fell, draping across The Valley stage in tatters. As an album, BRAT experienced unstoppable popularity and cultural reach upon its release last summer, bringing experimentalism into the mainstream in a way not seen since the heyday of Björk and Kate Bush. Where Charli breaks from those two, however, is in her party girl persona, making her the perfect headliner for Parklife Festival’s dance-centred lineup.
“You’re a beautiful crowd, Parklife”, Charli stated after ‘Apple’, the viral hit from BRAT which sees one fan chosen as the “Apple girl” to be featured dancing on-screen at each show. The star also paused to ask questions such as “are you guys feeling fucked up?” suitable for both her own persona and the audience she was performing to. Her scream of “I’m Charli xcx, motherfucker” towards the end of her set didn’t come across as self-centred, but seemed to celebrate her impact and her sharp spike in popularity, summarising the spirit of BRAT. Perhaps unexpectedly, Charli’s set also wasn’t shy of sentimentality: during ‘I Might Say Something Stupid’, she appeared under a single blue spotlight, isolated on one of the country’s largest festival stages. ‘party 4 u’, which in itself has been experiencing a viral moment recently, was also performed in an aptly maudlin manner: the song was written, recorded and released in 2020, when events such as Parklife Festival were unable to go ahead.
“If you’re here with your best friend, this is for you”, Charli declared as she began ‘Girl, so confusing’, a song taken from BRAT which discusses a strained, perplexing relationship with a fellow female popstar who turned out to be Lorde, as clarified when she appeared on the song’s remix. It was this version that appeared in Charli’s set, marking both a celebration of solidarity between women in similar situations and a commentary on the tendency of fanbases and the music industry to pit artists against one another. The star also performed ‘Track 10’ in a shower of rain that fell from the stage, and as she closed her set, the words “PLEASE DON’T LET THIS BE OVER” lit up the screens.
No festival is perfect, but Parklife’s 2025 edition came close, cementing the weekend as one of the best in the north’s annual music scene with a lineup for the history books, staggering staging and an animated atmosphere from start to finish. Set clashes meant missing acts including Overmono, Armand van Helden, 50 Cent and, perhaps most notably, Aitch’s surprise appearance with his ‘Raving in the Studio’ collaborator Bou, but this was inevitable with six stages filled with sets from dance music’s biggest and best. Here’s to hoping for the same again next year, then, and in the meantime, it won’t be long until The Warehouse Project returns to take over Depot Mayfield for twelve weeks celebrating the diverse sub-genres of electronic music.
