Longitude review: Travis Scott and Lil Uzi Vert finish out fine weekend in Marlay Park
Travis Scott on stage at the Longitude Festival in Marlay Park, Dublin, on Sunday. Picture: Glen Bollard
A lot has changed since Travis Scott stepped onto the stage to headline Longitude in Marlay Park almost exactly five years ago. We've been through the covid era, and the 32-year-old rapper was surely a relieved man taking to the stage on Sunday night, just a few days after a Texas grand jury had cleared him of any wrongdoing after the 2021 Astroworld tragedy in which ten people lost their lives at one of his shows.
With that incident in mind, parents of attendees might have been understandably worried, but Longitude has long been a very safety-conscious event. For instance, safety barriers divided parts of the crowd into sections, and regular notifications from the event's phone app remind the young crowd to take care of themselves and their friends. It was also great to see the buzz around some of the information stalls, such as Safe Gigs Ireland, educating on how we can make gigs and nightlife a zero-tolerance environment for sexual violence and discrimination.
As ever, the mosh-pit itself is not for the faint-hearted, but overall, the atmosphere at the festival is usually very good natured and positive.
Travis Scott’s own festival was named after the Astroworld album which came out weeks after that Dublin show in 2018, and that record helped propel him into the top tier of music acts worldwide. It remains a stunning album, and a towering testament to the dominance of Trap music, a subgenre of hip-hop that has been to the fore over the last decade or so.
Nearly 15 years after Jay Z addressed the over usage of Auto-Tune in rap music, one of Europe’s biggest festivals was dominated by the Sunday pairing of two huge proponents of voice manipulating technology, Travis Scott and Lil Uzi Vert. The sonics were amazing, particularly from Scott, and much of the credit must go to producer and engineer Mike Dean, who has helped shape the vision of many great hip-hop artists over the years.
Lil Uzi’s energetic show had set up the evening perfectly, and his appearance with Travis Scott on stage for his opening track 'Aye' (apparently the first time the duo had performed the track from Uzi's new Pink Friday album), meant that the long 45-minute gap between the two acts was largely forgotten.
Very few of the crowd would have been at Longitude in 2018, and Scott was the biggest name on the more streamlined two-day edition of Longitude this year. Elsewhere at a largely sunny festival there were well received shows by Saturday headliner Calvin Harris, Ice Spice, Raye, MK and Ireland’s high flyers Belters Only (with another of our biggest stars Jazzy) plus TraviS and Elzzz.
The anticipation was high for Scott, and he delivered a polished if slightly curtailed set of classics such as ‘Butterfly Effect', 'Highest in the Room', 'Sicko Mode' and 'Goosebumps'. His eagerly awaited Utopia album - due later this month - should elevate his career even further, but for now, this was another triumph.
The skies opened with rain during 'Stargazing' but most of the crowd embraced the moment, and as the curfew kicked in and Scott left the stage, they quickly left for their busses taking them from the Rathfarnham venue.
The neighbouring golfers who were lining up putts within’ earshot of Lil Uzi’s Verts 'Just Wanna Rock' will next have Def Leppard and Mötley Crew to contend with on Tuesday. That event likely draw an older crowd, but Longitude certainly made its mark on the memories of many young festival goers over the weekend.
