Who’s that one artist that you loved when you were younger? The one that you know all of their lyrics to? Craig David is that artist for me and he broke onto the scene when I was about seven, rocking my beanie hat and over ear headphones (ok, maybe not, I wasn’t that cool!).
When I Heart Wines offered us the chance to go and see Craig at the amazingly beautiful Kew Gardens I was straight on it, despite being over 200 miles from home holidaying in North Devon. A ‘Re-Wind’ back to my childhood was not one to be missed. I was quickly online trying to find the best option to get from Devon to London. The chosen option was for Beth to drop me at Bristol Temple Meads Station and head east towards the capital, I booked my ticket a mile away from the station and sprinted across the station to board my train as the traffic was horrendous!
I’d arrange to meet my friend Ollie and swapped a ticket for half of his double bed for the night, he was one of my Groomsman so Beth was happy with it!
Have you been to Kew? It looks stunning doesn’t it? Unfortunately, we only skirted around the outside, but I’ve seen how incredible it looks from photos online and really want to go back with Beth and my camera.
Kew Gardens is a botanic garden in southwest London that houses the “largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world”. Founded in 1840 Kew attracts over 1.3m visitors per year. Did you know Kew even has its own police force, Kew Constabulary?
“London’s hottest picnic concerts”
Metro
Defined by the Metro as Londons ‘hottest’ picnic concert Kew the Music hold concerts from a varied range of acts across a week in July. Concert goers grab their picnic and blanket and pitch up in front of the main stage. This years headliners were:
- Beverley Knight
- Billy Ocean
- Lewis Capaldi
- Nina Nesbitt
- Jools Holland
- Craig David
- Garbage
- Rick Astley
I Heart Wines had sorted us a bottle of wine to start the evening off, so we collected it from their vintage VW Camper, which Ollie and I sipped from on the bean bag loungers in the early evening sun, whilst watching the support acts, bliss.
Craig David’s support acts were Alex Aiono and Dani Sylvia. Alex Aiono was an American singer/producer, famous for his re-mixes/flipped versions of popular songs and found his early fame on YouTube and has over six million followers on the channel, he did a remix of Drakes One Dance which is worth a listen. Dani Sylvia won the ‘Best Songwriter’ at the Unsigned Music Awards in 2016 with Radio 2’s Alex Lester referring to Dani as “a name you’ll be hearing a lot of”.
Alex Aiono & Dani Sylvia Most Played Tracks on Spotify:
Alex Aiono:
- Hot2Touch
- Once Dance/Hasta El Amanecer
- As You Need
- Big Mistake
- Unloving You
Dani Sylvia:
- Green Eyes
- Enough
- Sundays
- Hotel Room
- End of the Road
With 15 Million albums sold worldwide and multi Grammy nominations as well as a top 10 billboard hit 7 Days, plus 4.5 million single sales and 290 million single streams in the last year alone – Craig David is the most talked about return to music in decades!
Over the six evenings only one of these was sold out and that was the somewhat of an elder statesman of the UK Garage scene that infiltrated the charts and my parent’s car stereo in the early 2000s, Craig David. Fresh from his appearance on Love Island, Craig burst on to the stage just before 9pm, as the sun began to set, dropping some of his biggest hits from his early career to get the crowd going and they certainly lapped up every beat!
Starting with ‘What If’ from Craig’s comeback album Following My Intuition, which was quickly followed by the 2017 summer hit ‘Heartline’, the lead single from the 2018 album The Time is Now. The crowd were then taken back to the early naughties, with David delivering hits such as What’s Your Flava, Rewind and Walking Away. Craig’s 2000 number one hit 7 days was turned into a Spanish serenade.
The warm evening in the capital definitely gave a festival vibe to the concert, possibly even a pool party vibe, less the pool and the swim wear (Craig has been a resident with his TS5 DJ set for the last couple of years at the Ibiza Rocks Hotel Pool). Despite going into his 20thyear in the music industry he definitely delivered and rewound us all back to 2001!
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