Music review: BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend, Camperdown Park, Dundee

Homegrown artists Bemz and the Snuts comfortably held their own amongst the big names at Camperdown Park on Saturday, although in the end Rotherham’s Self Esteem stole the show, writes David Pollock

BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend, Camperdown Park, Dundee ****

Finally arriving in Dundee three years after it was Covid-cancelled in 2020, the BBC’s roving annual music festival the Big Weekend is branded to Radio 1, meaning the line-up was pop-heavy – not that this places it too far along the spectrum from the likes of Scotland’s own TRNSMT event on the contemporary music scale these days.

Like Glasgow’s T in the Park successor (which returns in July), there were four stages across the spread-out site, with one field containing both the stylised triangular Radio 1 Dance stage, its bill heavy with the station’s broadcasters – including headliner Sarah Story and her special guest Pete Tong – and the more compact BBC Introducing stage.

Self Esteem PIC: Sarah Jeynes / Jamie Simonds

The latter featured later act Rudimental’s Olivia Dean as a solo “surprise guest” and Glasgow MC Bemz, his T-shirt representing Finnieston, delivering a fiercely popular show.

With a trio of rappers onstage by the end, his dynamic, high-energy performance matched that of London rapper Headie One, who was on the much larger Future Sounds stage.

Future Sounds featured an interesting bill – a group of future festival highlights in their own right, including West Lothian rockers the Snuts and Manchester’s Pale Waves, who put a goth (lack of) shine on glossy guitar pop.

The star of this stage, however – and arguably of the whole day – was Self Esteem, who skipped between the righteous fury of How Can I Help You, the tender The 345 and the anthemic I Do This All The Time, all with the help of a series of inventive and empowering routines as one of a quartet of dancers onstage.

The Snuts play Radio 1's Big Weekend PIC: Calum Buchan

Over on the main Radio 1 Stage, finally, the artists who are already big featured (notwithstanding the cancelled Thirty Seconds to Mars), including US pop stars the Jonas Brothers, the reliably anthemic, eccentric The 1975, and Jess Glynne – making a comeback after a difficult career period with an armful of established hits including Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself – and the Clean Bandit collaboration Rather Be. For anyone who missed the live feast, it’s all there on iPlayer and BBC Sounds for you to catch up with at your leisure.