Come September, many of the revellers congregated on the Isle of Wight are already anxiously awaiting induction into the fantastical, if far from fantastic profligacy expected of the average student. However whilst Freshers' Weeks the length of what resident islanders may unnervingly refer to as the "the mainland" bafflingly promote the usage of bedsheets to be frequently romped upon and equally often worn as a tenuous imitation of a famed ancient Roman floor-length garment, sullied and shaken atop endless R'n'B, D'n'B, Guetta etc., the farewell party to the summer (and to the largely inconspicuous sun) that Rob da Bank's
Bestival has come to represent contemporarily is infinitely more wonderful. In amidst the endless Gaga, fully-fledged fancy dress costumes are fastidiously crafted in correspondence with various LP sleeves spanning various decades, as Paul Cannell's celebrated Screamadelica canvas comes to three dimensional personification alongside suited and booted replicas of Ralf Hütter et al. from the cover of seminal Kraftwerk record The Man-Machine, all to the most consummate soundtrack imaginable. However few festival weather forecasts throughout the receding estival months previse mist and hail storms. Similarly few occur in September, and with Bestival now firmly lodged in the second week of said month the bash is inherently dislocated, or indeed disconnected, from the "festival circuit". Moreover having snatched the accolade of 'Best Major Festival' from the Eavis' well-worn hands at last year's UK Festival Awards, forever increasing numbers have been flocking annually to the Utopian haven that the Robin Hill Country Park periodically becomes. With much to set this one apart, its housing on an island seems innately fitting: anything but isolated, Bestival has now established itself as an integral element of the great British summer.
Irrespective of Eddy Temple-Morris' ill-timed and overtly ill-tempered 'Worstival' diatribe, seemingly vainly attempting to heap proverbial doom on the anticipated meteorological gloom, spirits on the innumerable ships that rock and roll towards the island are higher than the likes of Howard Marks and Mick Jones will later seem. Were it not for its curator Bestival, and conceivably any relevance reserved for the Isle of Wight, would surely perish as besides ordering in a radical spectrum of preeminent musical delectation, da Bank
coordinates fleets of taxis and
parts campsite gates via Twitter as organisational chaos sporadically arises throughout Thursday evening and into the earliest hours of Friday.
Come Friday afternoon, all eyes and ears are on the music, pop luminary
Brian Wilson magnetising his fair share. It seems quite counterintuitive and somewhat melancholic to witness him reading from an Autocue sat atop his keyboard his wildest desires to gallivant through white horses in search of his dream Surfer Girl, although when the classics flow as unremittingly as they do this afternoon (Good Vibrations, California Girls, God Only Knows, Barbara Ann etc.), all and sundry are helplessly swept away by his sumptuous surf pop. Incomprehensibly perhaps, there's a significantly greater number of paper masked, tracksuited clones ramming the Big Top to the rafters for
SBTRKT. They sway anemone-like to the soulful vocal strains of collaborator Sampha, producer Aaron Jerome obscured by his drumkit and despite the immaculate construction of many a song, his is a set largely devoid of much craved crescendo. It feels like building the foundations of something monumental, only to run out of bricks. And it's slightly irksome.
It's then the turn of
Public Enemy to get those white middle-class fists thumping the air around us although another hallmark of the live hip hop show, that of a pretty murky mix rendering their guitarist's presence all but an irrelevance, detracts from the gritty retro rage of the likes of 911 Is A Joke, Don't Believe The Hype, and Show 'Em Whatcha Got. Flavor Flav, bounding about with a giant plastic clock beneath his t-shirt that, until exposed, looks perturbingly akin to a pacemaker seems more concerned with attempting to flog his newly published autobiography, Flavor Flav: The Icon The Memoir and mindlessly bellowing "Yeah boy!" when the mood frequently takes him.
Patrick Wolf and later
Graham Coxon reel off inevitably inner ear-friendly sets peppered with gravely underestimated, if quite understated smashes beneath the gargantuan blue marquee situated in the southernmost reaches of the reconfigured site, a site which now sprawls across forests, lakes, and roller discos.
However it's
Mogwai that come closest to figuratively blowing away the tensed tarpaulin overhead prior to the gustiest of the high winds that rasp and whirr towards the hindmost happenings of the weekend. They open with the sanguine melodrama of White Noise, before a snowballing auspiciousness is gradually built into the Glasgow post-rock behemoths' set. Blizzards of howling Telecaster flourish, flowering into white noise as Stuart Braithwaite and cohorts deliver a masterclass in the art of bringing aural receptors to a palpitating climax that disintegrates into a familiar ringing din the moment they all too swiftly depart, the seductive six string baying of I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead aggregating all that's mesmerising of Mogwai. Minor jugular injuries to the sound of How To Be A Werewolf and Rano Pano aside, truly invigorating.
Having rereleased the debut record in an extravagant deluxe reincarnation,
Crystal Fighters continue to voyage atop the Star Of Love that's thus far carried them to the deepest nook and darkest cranny in each of the earth's four corners. Tonight they're back at Bestival, although
promotion from the now-extinct Rock'n'Roll tent to the Big Top is far from inconsequential: their relentless touring habits have conjured something of a folkloric aura around the enigmatic trio (here expanded to a quintet as the likes of Solar System and Plage are beefed up by live drums and then whipped with ethereal vox of Ellie Fletcher) as momentum has truly burgeoned. Frontman Bast has eased into the focal role he occupies, looking forever more akin to Edward Sharpe, harnessing the sonic enormity of Xtatic Truth with insouciance that's as effortlessly worn-in as his technicolour thawb. Nigh on every stilted lyricism on triumphant sounds and affinities for various nondescript outposts of London is vigorously yelled from within the swelling, seething pack crushed within the tent perimeter. Disregarding painstakingly crafted myths around the origins and inspirations of this idiosyncratic troupe, their ability to fuse together traditionally incongruous genres, and now evidently take these compositional mutations to vast stages as nonchalantly and incisively as they do tonight suggests that beyond the Basque front they've cultivated a formidable authenticity, and one that will, touch txalaparta wood, soon be tapped into once again.
On the distant horizon, at the heart of the Magic Meadow, a kaleidoscopic range of spotlights glare, beneath which house progenitor
Frankie Knuckles dishes out a disco-indebted dollop of groove in the Rizlab and as meridian shifts from post to ante, most recollections deteriorate just as Knuckles' Your Love once sank into the mordant guitars of curators Friendly Fires' revision of the Warehouse anthem.
