Review: SW4 ends UK festival season in style

South West 4 festival, commonly known as SW4 Festival, was one of the final UK festivals this summer, taking place on the extremely hot final weekend of August. Based just south of Central London, with a star-studded dance music line up, SW4 is in a prime location to attract revelers from the south of England. This aided the festival to a near complete sell out as Saturday and weekend tickets sold out, leaving Sunday tickets the only ones left available.

The sold out Saturday was headlined by the legendary Pendulum, who reunited to perform their first London show in six years. Acts joining Pendulum on the main stage included the likes of highly popular masked DJ Marshmello, and house music megastar Duke Dumont. Headlining the indoor main stage was the mighty Eric Prydz who supported by Solomun.

We were invited to come down to check out SW4 on the Sunday, and the weather couldn’t have been any better as temperatures reached 27 degrees. First up was future house pioneer Tchami on the main stage, who played plenty of his older hits such as ‘Missing You‘ as well as newer tracks including his summer anthem ‘Adieu‘. To keep the crowd fueled with energy, he went on to play new energetic hits such as Skrillex and Habstrakt’s ‘Chicken Soup‘ as well as Cazztek’s ‘Came To Get Funky‘.

Straight after Tchami on the main stage was bass house king Jauz. As soon as he came onstage, the vocals of his hit track with Netsky, ‘Higher‘ began to play alongside its highly recognizable chords, making an immediate impact. From then on Jauz mashed up a huge variety of songs, from hard hitting bass house tunes to some of the greatest sing along anthems, making the crowd louder with every track. This included mixing the following; Route 94’s ‘My Love‘ with Jauz’s own hit ‘Feel The Volume‘, Justin Bieber and DJ Snake’s ‘Let Me Love You‘ with another Jauz hit, his collaboration with Ephwurd, ‘Rock The Party‘ and he even threw in Swedish House Mafia’s ‘Save The World‘. By throwing in as much as he possibly could, Jauz definitely had one of the most ideal festival sets for a main stage.

During the sunset, Knife Party came onto the main stage to offer the fans an electrifying end to the weekend. The duo, consisting of Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen, celebrated the fifth year of the Knife Party project by playing nearly all their own hits, from their trap anthem ‘Boss Mode‘ to one of their first hits, ‘Internet Friends‘. This helped setup the crowd and build up anticipation nicely for the next act – main stage headliner deadmau5.

Festival goers had a half hour wait after Knife Party, as deadmau5’s crew needed to set up the latest version of the ‘Cube’. As they were building it, a black curtain was put down in front of the stage to prevent anyone from getting a glimpse of what to expect. The set began with everyone being able to spot deadmau5’s mau5 head silhouette, as he took himself to the stage, resulting in huge cheers from the crowd. The visuals produced from Cube 2.1 were stunning, and as expected from deadmau5, the production of the setup was excellent. The Canadian star took the crowd on a journey through his original productions, starting off slowly before eventually kicking into ‘Ghosts N Stuff‘ which had the crowd singing along. He also performed his new single ‘Legendary‘ featuring Shotty Horroh, which shows a different side to deadmau5 as an artist. Finally he ended his set with a long rendition of ‘Strobe‘, putting everyone into a trance before the spectacular festival came to a close.