Bestival

For somebody used to the relatively simple layout of Reading Festival's 4 or 5 stages, one look at the Bestival programme immediately presents a huge dilemma. With around 20 stages, plus loads more going on, the first thought we have is how much we are going to miss!

Bestival, with its Magic Meadow, Stardust Field and Ambient Forest bends over backwards to present the festival goer with a Glastonburyesque array of interesting and bizarre activities to engage their attention, including palm reading, roller disco and fairground rides. You can even charge up your mobile by dancing on the spot, if you have endless energy and patience of course. Otherwise you pay the £4 or £5 to charge your phone up for an hour in one of the many extortionately priced lockers. Bestival is a very commercial festival, nothing comes cheap.

The festival starts full-time on Friday but there's still a lot going on on Thursday as people arrive. After arriving fairly late, we manage just to catch Luke Concannon and his happy blend of catchy acoustic pop with a little hip hop and beatbox thrown in. It's not until the finale that it becomes clear where I've seen him before . . . it's the JCB song guy! In fact Luke is one half of the now defunct Nizlopi famous for said song. Of course, it's a massive crowd pleaser and as Luke climbs into the crowd with his acoustic to lap up the atmosphere and lead the sing-along . . . the Psychedelic Worm stage DJ starts up the music and completely ruins the moment. Luke climbs back up on stage to try and catch his eye, but it doesn't happen, the tunes keep pumping out and his big moment is ruined. Not a great start to the weekend from the sound man!

Friday

One of the biggest audiences for a Main Stage act for the whole weekend was hugely popular beatbox phenomenon Beardyman. If you haven't heard of him, he uses just his voice and a series of loops and samples to construct his set, live, from scratch, every time. His ingenious method enables him to create and replicate original and more familiar material into his set whilst constantly involving the audience. Eurythmics, Talking Heads and The Prodigy all get the Beardyman treatment. Orange spacemen and a white alien with a green head provide some visual entertainment. The crowd reaction and sheer amount of people here are testament to the fact that this guy is no novelty act and he could comfortably have slot in a lot later on this Main Stage.

Kitty Daisy and Lewis prove that the spirit of 50's rock n roll is still alive and well as the three teenage (or thereabouts) siblings knock out a cracking selection of original rockabilly numbers, swapping and changing instruments as they go.

After a walk around the Ballroom Field and a couple of photos with some members of Kiss on stilts we venture into the Motorcycle Wall Of Death – quite simply amazing. After motoring around the vertical walls on motorbikes and buggies, these 4 men and women deserver every penny of the shower of coins that rain down upon them from the amazed and slightly scared audience after the show.


It's back to the Main Stage for Brian Wilson. He opens up with 'California Girls' and there's no looking back for the audience from here. It's a non-stop onslaught of sing-along hits, 'I Get Around', 'Sloop John B', 'Help Me Rhonda' etc etc get the crowd singing and dancing in the afternoon sun. 69 year old Brian gets a lot of help from his amazing backing band who provide the essential multi-layered harmonies and occasionally lead vocals on a few tracks.

Brian himself reads a lot of the lyrics and his between song banter from a screen in front of him, but still on occasions loses his way. He gets a few concerned glances from band members and on a couple of occasions looks like he's going to keel over dead, but he makes it through the show and a hit filled encore, finishing the show with 'Surfin' USA' and 'Fun Fun Fun'.

I think a large part of Brian Wilson is still floating around in the 60's somewhere. He couldn't hold a show together all by himself and his voice is weak and frail at times. Just look at him as the conductor of his 'orchestra' bringing his seemingly endless string of hits to life with his faultless band. They love it, we love it and I think I saw Brian Smile. . .

During a wander through the Ambient Forest we stumble across a small clearing where the Proper Night Theatre are halfway through performing a very convincingly violent play. As well acted and interesting as it looks, Public Enemy are starting soon . . .

"Aaaaaaiiiiighghghhhhhhhtt?!" Screams Flavor Flav as he bounds onto the stage. "We'll be bringing the noise like a Mother f*****r" promises Chuck D and they do! Tunes like 'Bring tha Noize' and 'Don't Believe the Hype' sound fresh and still deliver a potent message.

Flav is as animated as his mean looking backing dancers/bouncers are still (apart from the occasional choreographed movement). Old classics and newer tracks sit well together, particularly 'Black is Back' (from their most recent, 2007 album).

There seems to be a constant stream of mean looking crew/hangers on appearing on the stage, the most amusing being an OAP with a big grey beard who leans against an amp stage right and scowls at the crowd for half of the show. I'm sure he looked scary back in the day . . .

A watered down, considerate Chuck tells Flav off for cussin' in one breath, then launches a pro riot tirade against the UK government in the next. Flav, with his trademark clock swinging round his neck, manages to keep it real, though lets himself down with a series of increasingly desperate plugs for his autobiography throughout the gig.

All in all, Public Enemy put on an awesome, age defying show and after finishing off with 'Fight the Power', leave the crowd hungry for more.

Pendulum's fusion of rock and drum n' bass certainly pulls the crowd to the Main Stage as today's headliners. The Aussie/UK outfit have an impressive stage and light show to accompany their catchy riff filled techno. Front man Rob Swire's incessant chanting/shouting just grates a bit too much for us to hang around for more than a few tracks. Much of the crowd would appear to disagree, but I fail to see anything that The Prodigy haven't been doing better for the last 20 years.

Instead, we decide to finish the evening off in the company of Ade Edmonson and his Bad Shepherds in one of the smaller tents. As they come on stage someone amusingly shouts "Gasman!" As if we need reminding that the main reason for most of us here watching is due to the presence of the ex 'Young Ones' and 'Bottom' star. The folk trio, with Ade on mandolin, thoroughly enjoy themselves as they plough through a set of wonderfully interpreted punk covers. Applying their richly enthused folky sound to classics like 'No more Heroes', 'Blitzkrieg Bop', 'White Riot', Wreckless Eric's 'Whole Wide World' and a host of other of punks greatest hits. Half the audience knew what to expect and the rest of us left happily impressed and entertained, convinced these professional, dedicated musicians are no novelty act.

Saturday

We start our Saturday with a healthy helping of Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip. Their mixture of sampled hooks and Scroob's meandering insightful social commentary (with just a little preaching thrown in) provides food for thought on the state of society today whilst keeping us engrossed. Scroobius Pip's mastery of words is most biting and effective on set closer 'Letter from God to Man'. The clever loop of Radiohead's 'Planet Telex' is the perfect backdrop for the almighty crescendo of Scroob's sermon.

The Village People are still going . . . ok so only the Sailor and the Native American are left from the original line up, but they're still touring and Bestival's not gonna miss out.

After belting out more recognisable songs than I care to admit to – 'In the Navy', 'Go West' (yep, they did it first!) 'You make me feel mighty real' etc, they succeed in shaking off many a hangover and get the Main Stage crowd camply bopping around. Of course the one everyone is here to join in with is 'YMCA', which they fittingly save until last, but not before an instructional lesson on how to do the required actions correctly! All good fun.

Keen to check out a few of non-musical attractions Bestival has to offer, we head over to the Comedy & Cabaret Tent and catch a bit of Pete Cain. He tries hard and gets a few laughs, but his shock tactics of covering such touchy subjects as AIDS, disabled kids, and immigration might be more suited to an underground dingy club than a mainstream festival audience.

PJ Harvey looks darkly elegant, all in black; with her head festooned with black feathers she commands the stage. Polly prides herself on re-inventing herself and not going over new ground in the studio, so when it comes to live performances we expect to hear lots of new material and that's just what we get. With a set heavily comprising of new album 'Let England Shake' material, she mesmerises us with her amazingly strong, heavy hearted voice.

Polly's look is completed by her clutching and playing her autoharp (mini electric harp) for most of the set. The intensity with which she performs sucks in the audience into her world and for dedicated fans this is a must see performance, however, I can't help but feel that for a festival audience she could have maybe compromised a little and thrown in a few more hits. She does, though, eventually end the set with 'Down by the Water' and 'Big Exit' and gets a much less subdued reaction from the crowd than to some of the rest of her set. Angry rocker 'Meet Ze Monsta' with its Queens of the Stone Age esque deep dark riff is an awesome set closer.

Polly rarely takes a walk into the mainstream and due to this a career of not quite headlining festivals trails behind her. But I think that's exactly the way she wants it and tonight's darkly wonderful set sets the bar high and the mood perfectly sombre for tonight's masters of doom . . .

With the enormous back catalogue and ever changing moods of Robert Smith, you can never quite be sure which sort of set list, or even which band members will be playing. The last time I saw The Cure was a few years ago in Wembley Arena when they were reduced to a three piece. The lack of keyboards left a huge gap in the performance, so it's a huge relief to see Roger O'Donnell back in the line up tonight. After receiving Bestival's loudest cheer so far this weekend, Robert shiftily creeps onto the stage and The Cure launch into a sombre start with Disintegration's 'Plainsong'. 'Open' and 'Fascination Street' set the ball rolling and a non-stop stream of classics follow one after another. It never ceases to amaze me how many amazing songs Robert Smith has written in the last 4 decades. From the perfect pop of 'Just Like Heaven' and 'Inbetween Days' to the haunting darkness of 'One Hundred Years' and 'Shake Dog Shake' to the quirky punk of 'Grinding Halt' and '10.15 Saturday Night'. Tonight's set of songs is as varied in age and styles as it is long.

The Cure have no age limit, the enormous crowd tonight consists of teenagers (and a few younger) all the way to those in their 60's and beyond and every single one of us loves every minute. The highlight of the main set for me being the timeless 'A Forest', the darkly catchy 'Shake Dog Shake' and (the song we woke up to them sound checking this morning) Pornography's deeply disturbing 'One Hundred Years'.

The band seem to thoroughly enjoy performing, particularly the ever energetic Simon Gallup who prances and poses with his low slung bass guitar like the 51 year old teenager he is, I think I saw Robert smile a couple of times too.

After finishing the main set with 'Disintegration', Robert returns for the first encore with the Bestival competition guitar slung around his neck, claiming he didn't play it before now as it "weighs more than a f***ing car!" . A hit filled danceathon of an encore which includes 'The Lovecats', 'The Caterpillar' (which they've only played a couple of times live since touring 'The Top' album over 25 years ago. I'm guessing the catacatacatacatacatacatacata bit is a bit tricky for Bob to get his tongue around) 'Close to Me' and 'Why Can't I be You'.

After re-appearing for the second emphatically received encore, Robert apologises for the delay and claims they've been "discussing which of our 365 songs to play" . . . I'm sorry, but I don't believe for one second that the 2 + ½ hour set list wasn't intricately planned and vetted by Smith alone, long before the gig started! As usual, The Cure finish their show with a final set of their 70's post punk material for the hardcore fans. 'Boy's Don't Cry' is slightly drowned out by the unnecessary addition of keyboards, which Roger happily switches for a tambourine on 'Grinding Halt'.

Tonight the weather held out, the dry ice man worked overtime, the sound was great, the crowd were in full on fancy dress party mode and The Cure delivered a spellbinding set. There's only time for one more track, it has to be debut single and long time set closer 'Killing An Arab'. Fantastic.

Sunday

Mick Jones likes a bit of banter and tries his best to warm up this meagre crowd. "We're a band from the 80's, we grew up in the 60's, playing music from the 50's, and we look like we're 90". I'm not sure half of the kids here would have heard of the Clash, never mind Big Audio Dynamite, but the guys crack on and play some great stuff, including their self titled song . . . they thoroughly enjoy themselves and jump at the cameras lots, claiming they're being filmed in 3D! We'd have love to have stuck around to see E=Mc2 but . . . you knows it . . . Newport's finest are about to start over in the Roller Disco.

Goldie Lookin Chain have yet to start and there's a bigger crowd here in and around the Roller Disco than there is on the Main Stage for BAD. I don't think these guys sell a lot of records, but when it comes to a festival, everyone wants a bit of a laugh with Wales' favourite satirical rappers.

Officially there are 9 members of the Chain, but on stage this afternoon we seem to get up to about 15 at one point. The guys prance around the stage rapping about No win No fee on 'Bad Boy Limp' ask, "who's taking drugs today? Before 'Soap Bar', get the whole crowd bouncing up and down for 'Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do' and lads pointing at their mates as they shout 'Your Missus is a Nutter'. It's one big pi** take of a party and everyone in the tent, band members, hangers on, and the audience have a huge grin on their faces. Several thousand people repeatedly chanting 'Your Mother's Got A Penis' for the finale is a surreal yet hilarious moment from the loveable rogues!

After being slightly disappointed with a mediocre performance from the Maccabees we head over to the Polka Club for a bit of a hoedown with Loose Moose. Their thigh slapping, hillbilly bluegrass is a refreshing change as people let their hair down and link arms and dance with random partners.

With tired feet we head to the Comedy & Cabaret Tent for a sit down and some belly laughs. Tasmanian Benny Boo is hilarious and is seemingly helped along by a whole weekend of steady beer intake. When we think our ribs can't take any more, Scottish born Canadian Phil Nichol has us curled up with his Rock n' Roll guitar driven songs and his amazing mastery of the rich and varied accents of the UK. Marcus Brigstocke admits Phil's a hard act to follow, but his posh boy self-deprecating banter finishes the Comedy & Cabaret Tent’s weekend with laughs aplenty, all wrapped up by the super professional compere Tim Fitzhigham.

The weekend is almost over and could there be anyone better to finish off proceedings on the Main Stage than Bjork? Well, the answer is probably yes! We watch the quirky Icelander warble along to a couple of snail paced musical meanderings which leave the audience and probably the organisers, wondering why she was chosen as the main festival closer.

Not wanting to incur additional late fees on our already monstrously overpriced 11pm ferry we rush off, exhilarated and satisfied with our Bestival experience, trampling over discarded fancy dress costumes as we go . . .