Imagine arriving at one of Falmer’s universities and there is huge, all-day drum and bass festival right next door. Congratulations Brighton, you just won Fresher’s week.
Beyond Boundaries picks up where Boundary Festival left off with a knowledgable line up of drum and bass, grime, dubstep and UKG featuring basically everyone from cult favourites like Window Kid to technical genius Harriet Jaxxon with some ‘legends’ thrown into the mix. Boundary Festival grew it’s reputation with the fan base over 10 years in Stanmer Park before closing last year, and Beyond Boundaries delivers more of the same but a bit extra, as you would expect from the team behind the On The Beach Festival and Brighton Psyche Fest. And, if you do happen to be new to the city and, perhaps, starting a university course, the event was a perfect introduction to some of the city’s prime club venues with each of the three stages and the tent curated by either the Volks, Concorde 2, Patterns or Quarters, and promoter Worried About Henry taking duties on the main stage.
Reviewing a festival, even a one-dayer, is a strange task. At a gig, you all stand side-by-side and stare in the same direction at the same time and listen to the same thing. At festivals, everyone is on their own personal journey and no two experiences are ever the same. So, while SOURCE loves the bass, it’s fair to say that this reviewer falls well outside the average age range of this crowd. In fact, this reviewer also happens to have a sprained ankle from the Alix Perez gig earlier in the summer, so it was nice to have a VIP niche for the ‘elderly and infirm’. Out in the event a lot of fun was happening. The footprint of the thing is small and really well used: no sound clash, no queues for food or for toilets blocking the dance floors, plenty of smooch and sit spaces, lots of instagrammable flags etc. So far, so superb. But what about the music?
This event is for people who love bass, and from the get go the lowest frequencys and nasty drops rattled out across sunny fields. Bass fans are a delightful bunch, but they do like to go hard and just keep going. Each stage had a slightly different flavour: as SOURCE roamed around it was fluffier and housier in the Canopy, more classic jungle and d’n’b in the Cove, maybe giving the line up a broader appeal, but the one thing that never drops is the energy. Beyond Boundary would have most of the Love Supreme crew running for their Chardonnay and, compared to the ‘other’ event, the sound got louder, the lights lightier, the pyro crazier. What’s not to love about that?
That’s the point really, isn’t it? Not everyone is going to love Beyond Boundaries, not everyone is going to love dirty grime in a crowd full of young people bobbing their nuts off, but those people don’t need to come. Because Beyond Boundaries isn’t for them, it’s for all the people who do love it and loved it hard and heavy last Saturday in the last of the summer sunshine and late into the night. What a legacy for the city to carry on.
Tickets for Beyond Boundaries 2027 on sale now.
Words: Louise Bloom
Photo credits: @elliekoepke, @hubble_photo
