After two whole years, Hospitality Weekend In The Woods was back! This time, Beckenham Hill Place Park was the place to be and we have to say, they couldn’t have chosen a more magical place. From dancing under the trees to watching the most perfect sunset on Sunday, it was a weekend we’re not going to forget anytime soon.
We started our weekend with the one and only Keeno at the Hospital Stage, where we would spend most of our first day. But can you blame us, with names like Metrik, Etherwood, Unglued and many more on this line-up? Back to Keeno for now. Having released his album I Live I Learn in the midst of the pandemic, this was his first chance to play a few of his tunes. And so he did. He set the tone for what was going to be a quite soulful and fun set throughout, with some heavy tunes here and there. At the end, he had one last question for us though: “Hospitality, do you want soulful or heavy?” The answer was unanimous, the audience liked it rough.
Tough choices were made
After Keeno’s set, it was time to go have a look at the other stages. The hosts for today, apart from Hospital Records, were Let It Roll Festival, Royal Rumble, Calibre Presents and Rupture. We didn’t make it to the Royal Rumble and Rupture stage at all, but seeing some of the social media stories of King Of The Rollers afterwards, we sure wished we did. Oh well. We did see the banging sets of K Motionz and Kanine at the Let It Roll stage at 3 in the afternoon. Who allowed them to play so many bangers in such a short amount of time? We sure didn’t.
With our backs and feet already hurting at 5PM, it was time to head back to the Hospital Stage. Unglued was playing some proper tunes when we arrived at the stage and it only got better. Remember his “If We Ever” Remix? Could not be missed. Next up was Etherwood and when we say Etherwood, we say dreamy with a touch of jungle. That’s exactly what this Lincoln DJ had in store for us. The dreamy “Lighthouse” and the all-time favourite “Begin By Letting Go” were a few of the hightlights of the set. His new album Neon Dust will see the light on the 24th of September, and at Hospitality we got a little taste of what’s to come.
Heavy, Heavier, Delta Heavy
With Etherwood, peace had returned, so why not fuck it up by going front row at Delta Heavy? The last time we were meant to see them, was at Rampage 2020 in March 2020. We all know what happened, so this was the perfect opportunity to make up for the last 18 months. And so we did. We skanked and headbanged our backs and legs out at “White Flag“, “Sientelo” by Camo and Krooked, and “Tarantula” by Pendulum, to name a few of the heavy hitters that were played. At the end of this set, we were feeling sorry for those that didn’t bring ear protection. That soundsystem hit different!
For the second to last set of this day, we made our way to the Calibre Presents stage, were the one and only Calibre had already started his set. He brought DRS with him, which would make it an unforgettable 90 minutes before it had even started. Spitting bars over the most perfect soulful tunes, this duo came through and delivered a wonderful set in the middle of the woods. Proper shame the last half hour clashed with Metrik, so we left the stage with (a lot of) FOMO.
Metrik. Do we need to say anything else? The perfect closing act to this perfect first day of Hospitality Weekend In The Woods. We’re not exaggerating when we say Ex Machina is one of our favourite releases of 2020, so imagine our happiness when he almost exclusively played tracks out of this album ánd his “Cadence (VIP)” from the H25PITAL album, which was one of the most anticipated releases of this year.
At 10PM, the first day of the festival came to a (way too early) end. Time to head home and recharge for day 2!
