Bestival - the inthenews.co.uk review
Bestival - the inthenews.co.uk review
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inthenews.co.uk's Lewis Bazley gives you a rundown of the last major festival of the summer. |  |
Monday, 08, Sep 2008 03:23
inthenews.co.uk's Lewis Bazley blames foul weather for ruining a fantastic festival.
It's a little odd to find yourself travelling to a festival on a ferry but it only increases the sense of adventure ahead of an event that promises fun, frolics and fancy dress just off the south coast.
The same brimming excitement isn't even dimmed during a drizzly walk through the camp though traipsing past scores of people who've saved tennis court-sized spaces for their yet-to-arrive friends just isn't cricket, frankly.
However, an amazing 12 hours of rain and high winds overnight - which makes you feel like an Arctic explorer as your tent thrashes around - are a precursor to a weekend that isn't going to be easy…
Friday September 5th
A massive delay to sawdust the main arena leaves the crowd hemmed in for an hour and all-but-encaged, leading one drunkard to make a poor taste Hillsborough 'joke'. But, to their credit, the stewards do a sterling job in instructing the waiting hoards to "walk slowly with us" after the fence has been dismantled. This would not work with the laddish V crowd while Reading's anti-establishment air would have seen the fence kicked down far earlier. Not so at Bestival, where we politely amble through to the sawdusted main arena and await the lineup changes.
Which haven't happened really. Instead, the first three bands - including Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong - are omitted from the bill and the gloomy indie rock of the Wedding Present begins the Bestival main event - with Peter Hook bass in tow, it's very 80s.
Spoof hospital radio DJ Barry Peters begins with a brilliantly-committed Since You've Been Gone before almost managing to rouse the sodden crowd with a classic cheese selection before the Warp meets Sly and the Family Stone of Jamie Lidell's mediocre 80s electro funk.
A quick nap in the Bollywood bar follows before joining the queue for a pie as the girlfriend shivers inside the Big Top tent leads into a run-in with Alfie Allen who summarises the weather as "f*****g dreadful!"
"I paid extra for boutique camping and the tent was in a puddle! What a waste of money," he added, though presumably the young actor - no sign of paramour Jaime Winstone - was cheered by Santogold, who puts in a loose, invigorating performance. You'll Find A Way is given a ragga feel as a black hoodie-clad Santi spits over a bass warble, before her angelic dancers mine their inner robot on a soaring LES Artistes and help you to forget the horrific rain momentarily.
Only one word is needed for main stage headliners My Bloody Valentine in their only UK festival appearance of the year - loud. It's just awe-inspiring, slabs of sound on a massive scale with ten minutes of noise intercut with choice selections from Loveless and others. Yes, this kind of roar is to the detriment of lyrics, but when it combines to create probably the loudest, most jawdropping music you've ever heard, that's more than ok.
But the main plaudits of the day go to Alphabeat, squashed in the ridiculously-named Red Bull 54 Speakeasy tent. The Danes are undoubtedly the festival band of the year, full of fun, chirpy, singalong enjoyment. The same M83-esque electronic intro is used for Fascination as at V but somehow it's more powerful here as the audience ignore their mud-splattered, soaking wet clothes and lose themselves in four minutes of utterly perfect pop.
Saturday September 6th
The night's rainfall was nowhere near as savage as Thursday's yet there's another stilted start to the day. Poor organisation is on display again, with the crowd kept out of the main arena for the second time, then forced on an tricky amble through the woods to reach the main stage in time for Laura Marling.
An 11:25 am start is ludicrously early for a Mercury Prize nominee, of greater fame than some of those who follow, and it means the crowd is unjustly small as the Reading ingenue enters with her shock of cropped blonde hair. Flawless versions of Ghosts, You're No God and My Manic and I follow, while the teen songstress is undimmed by a temporarily broken guitar strap, though she cracks a normally-hidden smile to joke: "My leg really hurts now, that's really annoying". Like Marling, the backing band are staggeringly talented, with the drummer playing three instruments at once on one track and the throng steadily grows to see Marling indulge her Joan Baez fandom on Rambling Man.
Dan Le Sac VS Scroobius Pip, pushed earlier in the day to accommodate special guests, are simply superb. Wry and wordy, Pip's an English hip-hop laureate while Dan's a mutton-chopped master on the turntables, powering through Thou Shalt Always Kill, Angles and others before a pulsing cover of Sugababes' Push the Button.
An unsurprisingly dark and brooding Gary Numan follows, owing a debt Noel Fielding for restoring his cool, though the cut-off combat pants are dodgy and the industrial vibe incongruous before the Specials are revealed as the first special guest. Despite the interminable drizzle, they're gratefully-received one for their first full show in 27 years, rattling through Nelson Mandela, Rat Race, Too Much Too Young and Monkey Man, though Ghost Town is omitted and Terry Hall looks bloody miserable as he smokes throughout.
Grace Jones follows and she's typically enigmatic in a sequinned top hat, heels and a barely there dress as surprise act number two before a magnificent Hot Chip set.
The indie-dance greats are magnificent, thumping through Shake A Fist and Out At the Pictures as they enter, remarkable as the only main stage band to get in the spirit of things in terms of fancy dress, with Alexis Taylor emerging from his typically reticent shell in a Napoleonic headdress. And it's hard to not feel your heart warmed when Joe Goddard - clad in a dinosaur suit - sways along to a beautiful closing track which merges from Nothing Compares 2 U into Made in the Dark closer In the Privacy of Our Love. An ecstatic, energetic performance.
And finally, Amy Winehouse arrives on stage a full 45 minutes late, by which time only journalistic integrity is keeping this writer in the audience. Happily, she puts in her strongest vocal performance of the summer, with Tears Dry on Their Own and Back to Black particularly impressive, though the latter sees her indulging in the jazzy riffing on the melody that utterly precludes the audience from singing along. And the problem with arriving 45 minutes late is that you've not only kept the audience cold and tired, you've also got to squash your set together, as evidenced by a thoroughly rushed climax of Valerie and Rehab.
And, that was that. Wait, I hear you cry, isn't Bestival three days long? Well, yes, but with more main stage delays expected on the Sunday due to the sloping main arena flooding, and this writer among thousands who were getting - just a little - miserable at the weather, we took the decision to scarper back to the mainland while we could.
Amy's rushed ending neatly encapsulates the festival - it could have been great, but for the weather. Just as the damp grass reportedly prevented Ms Winehouse from stepping onsite until the very last moment, so did ludicrously strong wind and rain, that felt like God emptying his washing basin, stop Rob da Bank's Isle of Wight shindig from becoming the festival of the year.
Because in terms of lineup, facilities, size, atmosphere, clientele, Bestival's got it all. It retains the anarchic spirit of Glastonbury without taking place on a knackering site the size of Bath, it's wonderfully free of the corporate branding of V and Reading and it's attended by neither the chavs who ruined two days in Chelmsford nor the tweens who get all revved up on Red Bull and being away from Mummy while in Berkshire.
Yes, the organisation leaves a lot to be desired, but it was their first muddy year in five, and if they'd only move the festival from September to August, that could be summarily avoided.
Glastonbury still retains the festival crown, but with a sunny Bestival, it might have been a different story.
Lewis Bazley