Bestival 2008

The British attitude towards the weather is usually pedantic to say the least. Consistent hang-ups over light showers characterised by small talk and a lack of interest in conversing about anything other than the obvious.

For those who attended Bestival this year, comments about adverse weather may have sparked reactions a little more extreme than a casual shrugging of the shoulders. But with weather observations over the three day festival reaching literal saturation point, the spirited attendees of one of Britain’s traditionally sunnier festivals will never want to see rain again, let alone hear it discussed.

Yet what a weekend! Buried under the hoods, umbrellas and ponchos lay the lucky 30,000 revellers there to enjoy the most fun fuelled line-up of the summer.

Bestival only attracts the finest festival goer. Brilliantly behaved, beautifully fashionable with a stir-crazy edge and as always fancy dress everywhere, the Bestival crowd are perfectly in tune with the harmonious, slightly left of centre atmosphere the festival generates.

Taking all the madness of Glastonbury at its most bizarre and transporting it into a beautiful country park on the Isle of Wight, the Rob Da Bank curated Bestival has never been about the uber-acts and the size. It’s a pocket slice of festival perfection that harnesses quality over the corporate quantity that characterises many of the other economically established festivals in the UK.

So when in the early hours of Friday morning the heavens opened for 12 hours solid and the site was soaked with nearly a months worth of rain, it took a special kind of crowd to rally round the established brilliance which has made Bestival a bespoke addition to the festival calendar.  And so the 30,000 freaks under the sea (the rather apt fancy dress theme), swimming in mud, got on with the job in hand.

Friday, whilst consistently raining, saw many of the crowd in high spirits eager to press on with the music. New indie heroes Foals, who played during a total barrage of rain, pulled a huge crowd considering the conditions. Having played their headline set at Field Day in London in a similar downpour, band members Jack Bevan (Drums) and Jimmy Smith (Guitar) were quick to praise the resilience of the crowd.

Smith said: “We must be doing something right; I certainly wouldn’t be standing out there right now. This festival brings the best out in everyone I think.”

Drummer Jack Bevan said: “We couldn’t wait for this one. This festival marks the end of the festival season for us so we wanted to go out with a bit of a bang, but I think the weather did that for us.”

In warmer surroundings the highly charged and more importantly, dry Big Top played host to a afternoon of hip-shaking delights from the charged rock of Daft Punk support act The Cazals, to the hip shaking antics of Transglobal Underground, Ebony Bones, Santogold and CSS.

Full to the brim to escape the rain, the 5,000 capacity Big Top boasted a sound system, which can only be described as intimidating.

Lead singer of Cazal’s, Phil (Cazal) was in good spirits: “Today was a bit of a triumph.  We really enjoyed ourselves out there. Even though you are in a tent, the stage is still quite high, so it gives you much more of a presence and we thrive off that.”

“We just finished supporting Daft Punk on their world tour so we are still on a massive high from that, but being here is just adding to general good feeling at the moment, this festival is my favourite.”

So with the afternoon negotiated successfully, what better way to warm the cockles than a coffee with everyone’s favourite festival veteran Howard Marks who was in jubilant mood.

“I wouldn’t miss this for the world, I’ve been here ten minutes, I’m soaked through and I’m nearly late for my act, but this is probably the most fun I’ve had all summer.”

With the BBC Introducing stage severely flooded and exciting new upstarts such as Lykke Li and The Black Kids and Late of the Pier having to pull out due to the weather, the evening winds up with a blistering performance from reformed headliners My Bloody Valentineand a bit of Bestival’s famed electronic brilliance in The Bollywood Bar from Bugged Out boys Erol Alkan and Justin Robertson.

So to Saturday and leading the charge was the 30,000 or so fancy dressed punters.  This unique barrage of stupidity brought a sea of colour to the festival. Even with the backdrop of mud, the human prawns, jellyfish, shrimps, numerous Captain Birdseye’s, sailors and sharks all contributed in bringing a much need splash of the sublimely ridiculous to proceedings. Coupled with the large number of people who paid absolutely no notice to the theme and came in their own fancy dress, you cannot help but be enamoured by the effort the crowd had gone to.

Highlight of the day for many was The Specials, with talk of a full reformation and new material, they played their first gig in 27 years unannounced and watched by a captivated front row central Phil Jupitus.

“That was something I’ve been waiting for a long time to see, so couple that with the fact I nearly got in a fight with a prawn earlier, it’s been quite a day already.”

Rattling through classics such as ‘A Message To You Rudy’ and ‘Too Much Too Young’, you felt like you’d witnessed of a classic festival moment with Terry Hall declaring to the crowd: “I’ve waited 27 years to play to a field full of pink prawns.”

The Saturday afternoon Main Stage had a distinctly retro eighties feel to it with Gary Numan, The Human League and further special guest Grace Jones offering a brilliantly glamorous slice of nostalgia.

Lead singer of The Human League Phil Oakley said: “It’s great to see loads of kids, who probably weren’t even born when we started, singing along to our records. It was a thoroughly bizarre experience.”

With their best year to date under their belts, gig of the weekend undoubtedly went to Hot Chip. With the feeling that they’d just stepped up to musical heavyweight division their hour long, beautifully crafted, electronic spectrum, showcased all the hits with an enthusiasm usually reserved for harder rock bands. Finishing with a rather unexpected version of Sinead O’Conner’s ‘Nothing Compares to You’, this was a triumph for a band whose consistent output over the last two years has seen them elevated to the upper echelons of credibility, not least for their remixed re-jigged live show. Shoe-in for future headliners.

With the sensible punters avoiding the Winehouse debacle (she arrived on stage 40 minutes late and was cut short through ‘Valerie’), it was time to relax before the lunacy of AphexTwin. This came in the form of bikini clad Devon nutters Django Spears playing covers in a skiffle – jazz style. The less credible the better was their moto with everything from Gina G to Coolio being totally decimated in jazz.  This was a hilarious and surprisingly apt performance from a cult act that was the only Bestival band seen all weekend to prompt a mass stage invasion at the end of their performance. The quality of their show was not matched by the glitchy headliner who left a rather sour flavour of Aphex Twin in the mouth. For once the sound system and the atmosphere did not really live up to the pre-billed hype in the sardine filled Big Top.

With the sun finally peaking out, Sunday had much more of an air of optimism about it. The afternoon saw brutal onslaughts from London scenesters The Filthy Dukes and Australian counterparts The Midnight Juggernauts. Both delivered the kind of rabble rousing electro tinged rock that has indie kids all over the UK reaching for the glow paint.

Midnight Juggernauts lead singer Vincenzi said: “The crowd are going ballistic and it’s only six’ o’clock and also half the crowd are still wearing their fancy dress.  It looks like no one here has been to bed.”

With yet more acts washed out on the unfortunate BBC Introducing Stage, the good weather on Sunday offered a chance to experience some of the unique oddities that make Bestival what it is. A quick trip to the maze, followed by a cuppa with the Women’s Institute is the kind of refined idyllic Sunday afternoon to help anyone recover from the night before. A quick walk in the wood heralded meetings with a few odd characters and a respite from the madness below. It also showcased the beauty of the surrounding countryside, another feature that makes Bestival such a picturesque gem.

This scenery is coupled with the diversity of a line-up, which takes in everything from indie, rock, dubstep, drum and bass, blues, jazz, and funk across ten stages. The diversity and the fact 70 per-cent of acts on the bill are unknown to most people makes it a complete musical discovery for many.

Further afternoon delights included The Coral, who remain truly one of the most original and entertaining bands around. Their psychedelic scouse rock as charming as ever. Also a rare appearance from George Clinton and Funkadelic who at one point seem to break the record for the most people performing on stage at one time. Dressed in full regalia this was total one-off from the funk legends.

And so to the finale, gratefully supplied by dance heavyweights Underworld.  Trawling through their awesome back catalogue, they proceed to justify every single ounce of hype ever lavished on them. Sounding as fresh and as relevant as ever, there is a seriously emotional chord to their music giving a nice tearful ending to hard weekend that saw some reorganisation in the harshest conditions. It was an exhilarating way to end it all, blistering through the likes of ‘Born Slippy’, ‘King of Snake’ and ‘Two Months Off’. The evening was fresh and rain free and a number of people’s spirits had been restored after toiling hard for the weekend.

Final gig of the weekend was Super Furry Animal’s frontman Gruff Rhys’s super psychedelic side project Neon Neon, who brought The Big Top to an enthralling if not slightly bizarre close.

Neon Neon 

The rest of us were given an insight into an emotional and shattered Rob Da Bank who declared: “I hope we never have another Bestival like this again.” This was a brief and brilliant momentary lapse where the drunk and inebriated punters, most of whom couldn’t care about the weather, were given a unique insight into the organisational nightmare a months worth of rain in one night can do to a years worth of work. It’s therefore with utter relief we are assured by the man himself Bestival will return next year – after the grass grows back and our legs recover.

Review by Thomas Frost