- From The Chuckle Brothers to local cheese rolling competitions, The British are a nation slightly obsessed with the ridiculous. Who else would remember Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards as a national sporting icon rather than a bloke who finished dead last at the Winter Olympics? If you wanted a living breathing example of the British's continued love affair with all things left of centre, you probably needn't look further than Bestival. A highly prominent fancy dress theme mixed with quirky activities such as swimming to the festival or joining in with a mass exercise class with Mr Motivator ensures the wackiness levels go off the dial. But scratch the surface and you'll find some of the best musical programming and most thoughtful touches any festival in the UK can offer.
Photo credit: Colin Friend
This year's Bestival was centred on the concept of "Fantasy," an idea that was brought to life by a huge fairytale castle constructed at one of the end of the site and a "wishing tree" constructed at the other. The costumes on offer ranged from the obvious (Gandalf / creatures from Avatar) to the conceptually brilliant: a guy who had encased himself in a human-sized version of Tony Blair's autobiography was a particular highlight.
The first day of the festival saw the British Summer continue to prove its doubters wrong by providing a pleasantly rain free backdrop to proceedings. Kieran Hebden showed that laptop sets don't always have to have the visual appeal of a used jay cloth. His meandering, jazz influenced techno was accompanied by a troupe of dancing girls complete with glow in the dark hula hoops. It may have been gimmicky, but it provided enough of a visual draw to make Four Tet's cultured sound work on the grand scale of Bestival's Big Top.
Photo credit: Colin Friend
Later on in the same tent, The xx provided one of the main talking points of the day. The interest of the Bestival masses was grabbed by The xx's recent victory at The Mercury Music Prize—an event which made national news in the UK. Fans that'd got a prime spot at the front were treated to a typically introspective and personal performance from the band, while those that had arrived later were treated to muted sound and a lack of atmosphere as swells of curious Johnny-come-latelys filled the arena to overflowing. This made for some mixed reviews on site: the only conclusion being that The xx's nonchalant and moody music just doesn't translate too well to huge audiences.
The first day was brought to a close with an enviable run of house and techno. Magda, followed by Plastikman, followed by Seth Troxler and capped off with Dave Clarke is not a bad line-up by anyone's standards. Predictably the music did not disappoint—although the quality of the sound varied greatly depending on where you were positioned. The toughest job of all fell to Seth who had to keep energies high after an improbably tough set from Richie Hawtin and before an even tougher one from Dave Clarke. Fortunately, Troxler's boundless enthusiasm, huge hair and bag of energetic tech house was enough to make sure that those who hung around were not disappointed.
The second day of Bestival was not a success weather-wise. Like a weary boxer in the ninth round of a mismatched fight, the English sun inevitably succumbed to lashings of wintery rain. Anyone in need of cheering up, however, could take comfort in watching 30,000 festival goers tackle the mud in various states of impractical fancy dress: and that's without sampling some of the brilliant music that was on offer.
Photo credit: Colin Friend
Gilles Peterson seemed intent on breaking some kind of personal record in the Bollywood tent by cramming as many genres of music into a set as he could. Disco, samba, dubstep, techno, hip-hop and Latin jazz all sat side by side. Predictably nothing sounded out of place—except perhaps Giles' Tim Westwood-esque call to "Check the lyrics!" before playing a Cee-Lo track. Peterson was then followed by David Rodigan: perhaps the most underrated DJ in the game.
Rodigan has the unassuming look of a retired Geography teacher, but the way he plays music is the stuff of legend. Having specially made versions of "Mr Bombastic" and "Here Comes the Hotstepper" that reference your own name is pretty amazing by anyone's standards; but weaving them into the set that manages to demonstrate the entire history of reggae—from rocksteady to dubstep—is sheer magic. The peak came when Rodigan slotted Mille Small's sickly sweet pop hit "My Boy Lollipop" into a set of original ska—causing one reveller to crowd surf right under the nose of Rodigan himself.
Other highlights of the day included a set from Todd Edwards at The Arcadia stage. A huge fire breathing steel structure that's 50% Mad Max and 50% Arachnophobia, The Arcadia stage is by far the most visually impressive stage Bestival has to offer. The DJ is elevated high above the audience in a metal cockpit as if in control of some insane dance music doomsday device. From this position, Todd "The God" cycled through all the tracks that you would expect: plenty of his own material interspersed with classics from the likes of Tuff Jam and Double 99. To many of the mid twenties crowd, it was like going back to their teenage years when speed garage ruled.
Photo credit: Vic Frankowski
By the final day many revellers were probably beginning to feel a little jaded. Thankfully, Bestival put together some nicely paced programming to put people back into the swing of things. The Wailers may contain only one original member, but their rendition of Bob Marley's classic hits couldn't fail to put a smile on the face of even the most overdone festival goer. Likewise, Nile Rodgers' Chic put on a show that sped through party-starting floor fillers at a rate of knots: "We Are Family," "I Want Your Love," "Freak Out," David Bowie's "Let's Dance" and Diana Ross' "I'm Coming Out" featured in an hour set. If anyone still had the booze blues at this point, there was probably no helping them.
While The Prodigy rinsed out the same show they've been doing for the last decade, Caribou delivered one of the weekend's best performances in a surprisingly small tent. The Canadian group almost exclusively showcased their new electronic lead sound, a move that had the crowd enraptured from start to finish. Throughout the tent delivered ever louder calls of "Sun, sun, sun, sun." This lead to an almighty climax when Dan Snaith aggressively grabbed the mic and barked back his own "Sun" chant before quickly looping it and going into a ten minute version of 2010's most irresistible summer hit. It sent the crowd ballistic.
Those who stumbled shell-shocked out of Caribou's tent were greeted to one of the most impressive firework displays imaginable. As the fantasy castle was set aflame Wicker Man style, a ludicrous array of fireworks exploded around it in every conceivable colour and pattern. It seemed to go on for over ten minutes and was a great example of the extra mile Bestival often seems to go to—they could have easily spent half the money and it still would have been amazing.
Photo credit: Vic Frankowski
Surprisingly one of the few disappointments of Bestival came at the very end. LCD Soundsystem, a band you could probably bet your house on to end the weekend spectacularly, chugged through their set in a slightly disorganised and tired manner. At times you could barely decipher James Murphy's nasal draw over the throb of the sizeable band. At one point Murphy was forced to try and rewire a hulking Moog synth halfway through a track. LCD weren't bad, tracks like "All My Friends" and "Losing My Edge" totally went off, they just didn't seem to have the energy to peak the understandably weary crowd.
Bestival basically does it right. Its focus on fun but with properly exciting music is something that plenty of other events of its kind could learn from. And when the rain stays away, as it did for most of this weekend, Bestival can safely sake its claim as one of the premier festivals in Europe.