Filed under: Reviews
This is the festival that grabs you by the proverbial balls yelling “AVE IT” before flinging you at warp speed into a mosh pit of frenziedly excited fellow party heads. No rest for the wicked, and certainly no sitting down with a nice cup of tea! The vibe this year was as frenetic, throbbing and totally hedonistic as ever.
The dress-up theme was outer space. Miles upon miles of Bacofoil had been sacrificed to make alien heads, shields, thigh boots, robot masks… you could get snow blindness from all the flashing silver and LED’s on show. A large number of people wore colanders on their heads. One bloke had made a jaw-droppingly spectacular replica of the yellow digger that Ripley fights the monsters with in Alien.
Musically, Bestival was a mixed experience sound-wise. The main stage was newly positioned at the top of a slope, meaning that not only did we have to stand leaning backwards craning our necks to see the acts (ouch) but the sound travelled right over our heads. Thankfully, the sound was ramped up on the main stage for the Saturday night headliners: Kraftwerk. Their set was nothing short of inspirational, their trademark monotone voices and crystal clear synths still sounding so current. Their Bauhaus-style visuals (featuring lots of trains, power stations and radio masts) flowed seamlessly alongside their sparse sound, and the band’s obsession with technology married perfectly with the event’s space theme. For one of the penultimate songs they had robots onstage ‘performing’ the songs. Wunderbar!
Boy-8-Bit was also brilliant, tearing up the dancefloor with electroclash and infectious spacey bleeps. And a special mention has to go to the busking spaceman Sonic Manipulator who played a one-man band show dressed in an LED-festooned spacesuit, rapping and throwing bleeps out to the universe with his home-crafted beat box gadgets and theramin-loaded light sabre. We salute you! There was even a cheesy wedding-style disco next to a massive inflatable blow-up church complete with guest DJs spinning the naffest of platters – how good is that?
And what weather we had: non-stop sunshine! While the event was so packed it felt as though it was going to burst at the seams, you can’t deny the festival’s good intentions and all-inclusive stance. There’s something for everyone from all walks of life: there’s nothing stuck up about any of it and a vibe of well-meaning mischief pervades. Bestival is friendly, good old fashioned party fun for all: just don’t come along if you plan on sitting down!
(Anne Richardson)
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