Bestival 2010
This weekend, we finished our summer festival season by making the journey to the Isle of Wight for Bestival. Now in its seventh year, the event has become an essential addition to many summer diaries with around 50,000 eager revelers making the journey across the water. As always, fancy dress was the order of the weekend; with a large majority of attendees – including many of the bands – adhering to the ‘Fantasy’ theme for the event bathing the site in an array of colour. The festival’s curator, Radio 1’s Rob Da Bank, once again ensured the weekend went off with a bang. With a line up that encompassed some of the biggest artists and DJ’s plus a number of one off performances that keep this festival so unique.
Headlining the event’s main stage this year were the Prince of Grime, turned permanent chart botherer, Dizzee Rascal, American indie Godfathers The Flaming Lips and, providing one of Bestivals most raucous send offs, dance legends The Prodigy. However this was only the tip of the iceberg, with hundreds of other bands and DJ’s providing countless line up clashes across the weekend. Whether it was the draw of the Big Top, or the fire breathing chaos of Arcadia; Bestival provided a weekend of unbridled madness that already has us counting down the days till next year.
Friday
After recently being crowned Mercury Prize winners for 2010, it’s fair to say that the xx’s set in the Big Top stood out as the most anticipated of the day. The trio were greeted by a packed tent, with many late comers forced to endure a frustrating wait outside. Entering the stage accompanied by an eerie breath of smoke, they more than delivered with a breathtaking set of material from their eponymous debut. Where they go from here remains a mystery, but the xx confirmed their status as one of the key bands of the year tonight.
Earlier in the day slap bass retro rockers Level 42 opened proceedings on the main stage, the perfect accompaniment to many Alan Partridge fans who could be heard shouting ‘Alan’ throughout the weekend. Then Four Tet, aka Kieran Hebden, gave us our first welcome slice of dance music of the day. Accompanied on stage by four hula hoop wielding dancers, Hebden proved that laptop sets need not always be boring to watch. We were also, once again, taken aback by the staggering live presence of Wild Beasts, who ran through a number of tracks from their recent album ‘Two Dancers’.
While the pull of Hot Chip was keeping us at the Main Stage, we couldn’t resist checking out Richey Hawtin making a rare live appearance under his Plastikman guise. Playing behind a huge revolving light cylinder, Plastikman gave the festival one of its jaw dropping performances of the weekend. However, we had to get back to the Main Stage to see Dizzee Rascal entertain the masses with a hit laden set including ‘Fix Up, Look Sharp’ and the chaos inducing ‘Bonkers’.
Saturday
Saturday is when Bestival comes into its own, as all attendees are encouraged to don their fancy dress outfits and look as original, or strange, as possible. It’s a tradition that seems to get more popular each year and one that continues to embody the unique spirit of the festival.
Despite the early downpour in the day, everyone still turned out in an impressive array of costumes. Ranging from computer game characters, to an army of green toy soldiers, the majority of the crowd refused to let the rain stop their play. If one person was going to lift spirits in the damp weather, it was certain to be the TV institution that is Rolf Harris. Dipping into his back catalogue – accompanied, of course, by his ever present wobble board – Rolf delivered hits such as ‘Two Little Boys’ and ‘Tie Me Kangaroo Down’ to give the day a superb start.
Before we started to feel like OAP’s, Everything Everything gave us the upcoming buzz band hit we needed. Their debut album ‘Man Made’ has been ever present on our stereo since its release, their live performance only furthered our interest. While Mumford & Sons and Roxy Music were the bands on many people’s lips, we wanted to explore what else the festival had to offer. Lucky for us we caught David Rodigan deliver one of the DJ set’s of the weekend. The reggae legend performed to a packed Bollywood Tent, with his infectious energy taking over the crowd. He also caused what might be the first ever case of crowd surfing to Millie Smalls ‘My Boy Lollipop’.
Later that night, garage legend Todd Edwards, took over the decks at Arcadia. Set outdoors, the intimidating stage resembles a giant metal spider, one that also breathes fire throughout the evening and into the early hours. While this meant we had to share second hand stories of The Flaming Lips staggering set, it was great to see the festival from a different perspective.
Sunday
On the festivals last day, the sun decided to shine on the Isle of Wight and Bestival was given the weather it fully deserved. Former Soft Cell singer Marc Almond took to the Main Stage and shook the crowd into action. However with the sun shining as strong as it was, Bob Marley’s former band The Wailers took over and truly came into their own. With anthems such as ‘Jammin’, ‘Three Little Birds’ and ‘One Love’ giving the sun kissed day the soundtrack it needed.
It proved to be a day of classics as Liverpool indie legends Echo & The Bunnymen wowed the baking masses before Disco gods Chic tore through a set of pleasing favourites including ‘Le Freak’ and ‘Good Times’ while frontman Nile Rodgers educated the crowd on a number of tracks he’d written with other artists, performing David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’ and ‘I’m Coming Out’ by Diana Ross.
We then caught Caribou deliver one of the years best tracks in ‘Sun’ at the Rock ‘n Roll tent before heading over to the Main Stage to catch The Prodigy deliver a staggering set that dipped into their back catalogue as well as highlights from their recent ‘Invaders Must Die’ album’. The Prodigy were made for festivals, drawing one of the largest and frantic crowds of the weekend.
However there was still time for one more headline slot of the evening. LCD Soundsytem took to the Big Top stage, in what is rumored to be their final UK festival appearance. James Murphy and his gang have been one of the stand out bands of the last decade. As we come to the end of it, their set gave us some of the musical highlights of the last ten years. From the hipster baiting anthem ‘Losing My Edge’ through to recent party soundtrack of ‘Drunk Girls’, LCD gave Bestival a suitably chaotic send off.
Now we’ve got another year to plan our next costume…
Photos by Colin Friend & Vic Frankowski.
