Positioning fairground rides, impenetrable beer tents and three stages within hills overlooked by cows and Falmer stadium, Shakedown’s final escapade in Stanmer Park – the festival will move to a new, as-yet-unnamed location next year – took the joy of midday raving to the countryside.

If there were two core genres attracting the disarmingly young crowd to this field, they might well have been drum and bass and grime. Local heroes Krafty Kuts and A Skillz laid on a boisterous blend of beats and bleeps in the Supercharged Arena, named after the ever-popular breaks night they are fixtures at.

Their stint resembled easy listening once a four-act takeover by RAM Records – owned by DJ overlord Andy C, who pitched in – was in full swing, including a winningly thunderous session from Wilkinson.

“This is the place where the energy is,” announced a voice which may or may not have been Zane Lowe’s, introducing the Radio 1 enthusiasm machine to the vast, throbbing tent. Lowe has played at all three editions of the festival since 2011 and his heavy, all-killer set made him one of the best performers of the day again.

Outbreaks of aggression punctuated a general atmosphere of cheery chaos around the site, most shape-throwers gamely attempting to plan their schedules without paying for the privilege of printed lanyards revealing the line-up times.

In the Audio Arena, Toddla T entered to footage of Jarvis Cocker hypothesising the need for music with heart. The 1990s theme continued when Shola Ama, the R&B singer with whom the DJ made his 2011 single Take It Back, slalomed into view for a rendition of You Might Need Somebody.

A 1996 cover of Randy Crawford’s soul number from 1981, its reception suggested a crowd too cherubic to be familiar with Ama’s work. But the thumping A-Trak remix of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Heads Will Roll was greeted rapturously, setting the scene for Annie Mac to take the spotlight from her boyfriend.

For crowd pleasers, the Main Stage trod a chart-dwelling path. DJ Fresh ploughed briskly through brash, feel-good anthems, and Maverick Sabre’s Bob Marley impressions sailed perilously close to naffness.

Rizzle Kicks closed the show as headliners and it would take a frozen heart to dismiss the duo’s constant frivolity. Jordan Stephens’ freestyle rapping, though, proved only a brief diversion during a set in which powerpuff clowning was the order of the night.