We Love...Homelands 2003 review

The beginning of another summer of dance music kicked off this bank holiday weekend when 35,000 people crammed into the Matterley Bowl in Winchester for 17 hours of music from some of the world's finest DJs. BBC Southampton's Indy Almroth-Wright checked out the action.

The morning's festival preparations were tricky to say the least due to the weather forecast which wasn't looking too perky - leaving me with the nightmare decision of trainers, flip-flops or wellies.

I went for the trainers which was just as well, apart from a couple of brief showers the sun did its best to shine and with such a stonking line-up some serious leg work round all the arenas was called for.

The first stop was Radio 1's giant pyramid stage where the sun had his hat firmly on and Fergie's Future Heroes had the party well underway. Next up onto the hottest decks in the field was Dave Pearce who took over the driving seat and whipped things up with his trademark banging tunes.

Under cover in a jam packed Live Arena New York's creative hip hop legends De La Soul had the crowd in full swing. They thumped out a string of sing-along hits including Me, Myself and I and The Magic Number which had everyone getting jiggy with it.

After some chips and a quick bungee jump (not a good combination) I managed to shoehorn myself into Arena 5 which was bursting at the seams with the crowd yelling "Everybody say, ho!" Grand Master Flash was at the controls, mixing old school tunes from Michael Jackson with hip-hop.

Legging it back to the Live Arena Bristol drum & bass trio Kosheen were knocking out a fantastic set. Rolling dark bass lines had heads nodding and feet grooving. After warming us up with some classics including a blinding rendition of Hungry, Sian asked us if we wanted some drum n' bass, the answer was most definitely "yes...!" and we moved up about three gears - I swear the tent was shaking.

The next hour proved a bit of a dilemma with a clash between Groove Armada and The Chemical Brothers. I popped into Arena 1 where a massive crowd was waiting for the duo to give them a jump-start.

I managed to squeeze my way to the front where I could just about make out the Superstar DJs through the dry ice and strobe lights. From the moment the needle hit the first record the dance floor was jumping, glow sticks spun round, shapes were thrown and I could tell the crowd were in for the full duration with two hours of sweaty moves.

Back into the Live Arena an eager crowd was waiting for the headline slot - Groove Armada to float into The Bowl. They started their hour long set with I See You Baby before moving into some laid-back smooth, lazy, funky, sunshine dance tracks that had everyone grooving.

They finished with Superstylin which was like having a bucket of cold water thrown over you. The crowd moved from their chilled out state back into party mode, the trombone belted out across the arena and we po-goed like lunatics. We were asked if we wanted a rewind...(stupid question) and with thigh muscles screaming "no!" we did it all again.