'Performing at Creamfields is a dream come true'

It was a normal work day for social media manager Jordan Tilstone, who was shooting content when the email of his dreams popped up on his phone.

The subject line: Jordan Tilstone X Creamfields.

Outside of his day job, the 27 year-old from Biddulph, Staffordshire, has been a DJ since he was 16, and had just been offered a slot on stage at the dance music festival which typically sees about 80,000 ravers descend on Halton, Cheshire, in August.

"I had the guys being like: 'Does this angle look alright mate?', I just froze on the spot... it was the offer and all the details of it, what stage, the time," he told the BBC.

"I managed to troop on somehow, I don't know how I did it, I just kept it to myself.

"It was surreal, I just had to hold it in all day and as soon as I got into my car I just screamed."

Big names on the line-up include Calvin Harris, Martin Garrix, Becky Hill, Carl Cox, and Armand van Helden.

"Now that I've seen my name on that line-up with those names, in that font, next to the Creamfields logo… when I first saw my name I just burst into tears," he said.

He said things had been on the up for him in the last 18 months, and since the start of the year his monthly listeners had tripled.

"When you've put 11 years into it and sacrificed more than really anyone could ever fathom, it's a magical feeling for sure," he said.

Tilstone's genre is trance - electronic dance music that originated in the early 1990s.

He said this was one of the reasons why he stood out.

"In the UK it's been in the back seat compared to house, techno, and drum and bass," he said.

"There's a massive young crop of DJs, basically their parents got them listening to it when they were a kid, we're in our mid to late 20s and all making traction, we're bringing it back around."

Another reason he is different to other DJs, he said, was his strong connection to his home town, Stoke-on-Trent.

Last year, he hosted the first ever rave at Gladstone Pottery Museum in Longton.

"Leaning into its pottery heritage in terms of my branding, putting on the event in Gladstone, I'm looking at putting more and more events on in different cultural heritage sites that our city has," he said.

He added that he had also started adding in heavier drums and more mechanical sounds into his music, inspired by the potteries.

Creamfields will be held on the bank holiday weekend of 27 to 30 August, for the four-day festival's 20th anniversary year.

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