A sense of the subdued lingers come Sunday and it's not until
Omar Souleyman teases the fragile from the throes of both slumber and splintering headache on the Main Stage that many beings are encountered. Like a snake charmer beguiling a pit of serpents with processed Korg frenetics, his wearied disciples slowly but surely cross the mudded planes of Robin Hill Country Park, dressed in suriyahs and tea towels, to raise their slithering arms towards Souleyman. Introduced by a stern translator in suit and shades, Souleyman eventually emerges, clenches his microphone between arm and torso, and begins to clap. Rhythmically, mesmerically. Everyone follows the lead of this exceptional Syrian trance prophet, as the crazed sounds of La Sidounak Sayyada commence. From here until Shift Al Mani, as enough fabric to fill Brick Lane glimmers in the midday sun, conga lines snake through the growing crowd, maddened by Souleyman's kooky, esoteric vibes. A phenomenal way to introduce insanity to Sunday as Souleyman's Jazeera Nights are transferred to an Isle of Wight early afternoon.
Star Slinger then doles out a laid-back set of celebrated hip hop at the Red Bull Music Academy beneath a foam alphabet caught in rope webbing, adding his distinctive rhythmical interjections now and then via a sampler forcefully thumped throughout. Baby Mama is certainly suitably jittery for a stage sponsored by the caffeine-addled energy libation. Keeping the sounds eccentric yet accessible is
Kelis who, in the comfort of the Main Stage, unashamedly affirms her intention to "pleasure" herself in place of conventionally entertaining the masses, and does so through the regurgitation of any contemporary R'n'B besides her own, an endless slew of chart fodder spun by her resident DJ. Given that she's been superseded by nigh on her every contemporary the tolerable side of Speech Debelle however suggests that Ms. Rogers is, hypothetically, anything but contemporarily relevant, and dodgy mash-ups of Milkshake and Trick Me do little to dispel such a notion.
What feels like half of this year's merrymaker capacity then piles out ahead of a typically gleeful
Big Audio Dynamite showing: Mick Jones has been at the Brylcreem, and looks like an incompetent mafioso decked out exclusively in M&S. He's bursting with anecdotes too, and muses on ordering room service in place of heedlessly panicking during a Japanese aftershock, claims to have bought the notorious 20th Century Fox jingle, and hurls himself at Don Letts in order to give those glued to Sky Arts the full 3D effect. Musically meanwhile, E=MC², Rush, BAD, and The Bottom Line sound incontrovertibly essential to the quest for full satisfaction at this particular edition of Bestival.
Back over in the Psychedelic Worm of a beast,
John Grant further seduces the patently obsessive uppermost age quartile clustered close to his acrimonious balladry, before Cardiff outfit
Islet career through the likes of We Shall Visit and Ringerz with such earth-shuddering self-assurance you half expect the Isle to have been submerged slightly below sea level. The pace is an unabating blinkandyou'llmissitwithnoletups for forty-odd minutes, as instruments are chopped and changed, reverse stage invasions take place in which various members leap amidst we mortals, and all that oozes from an arsenal of speakers is continually exemplary. Which is considerably more encouraging commentary than that which can be feasibly applied to
Robyn: irrespective of the frigid synth charm of Dancing On My Own, With Every Heartbeat or Be Mine, her one-track minded approach to songwriting, perpetually painting herself as the spurned outcast slumped in dank discothèque corners, invisible to those that she lusts after, is both enervating and exasperating in the extreme. Additionally, the point at which she semi-provocatively ingests and then attempts to disgorge a banana is a sight more nauseating than any number of vomit-drenched bodies strewn across the campsites.
Zola Jesus, meanwhile, beneath the overwhelming midnight blue of the Big Top, is immensely more bedazzling although despite the similitude of her musical outpour with that of tonight's Main Stage headliner, somewhat bemusing timetabling results in her show being critically under-attended, however rousing operatic opener Avalanche may be.
Behind the stimulating façade of a spoken voice intro courtesy of Sir. David Attenborough, an all-singing, all-dancing choir that meanders the stage like water flowing atop a Ball in Hole game, the flashing of lightning bolts encased in what looks like a segment of Butlins Splash Waterworld slide during glitch-ridden opener Thunderbolt, and fireworks that erupt from her hands,
Björk's first outdoor UK festival appearance in a long old while isn't as gleaming as it may well have been. Yelping beneath a colossal, almost bestial umber wig and transparent plastic headpiece equal parts luminous shark fin and surreal replication of Portsmouth's Spinnaker Tower (that spasmodically visible beyond the mists and gale force winds that viciously circle the campsite), she reinterprets the entirety of forthcoming eighth LP Biophilia (minus Sacrifice and Solstice), openly professing to her minimal regard for the desires of the gathered for the familiar. The irregular plinks and Aphex-like intervention of Crystalline are spellbinding, if somewhat self-indulgent while occasionally grotesque, often ambiguous stop-frame photography serves as her backdrop. When it comes to the aforementioned 'familiar', Debut album track One Day is injected into the heart of her setlist, its methodical construction ensuring it remain soluble amidst compositions taken from her latest oeuvre Biophilia, while exclusively vocal Medúlla cuts Where Is The Line and Sonnets/Unrealities XI are more or less crowbarred into her conclusion. The metaphorical curtain-closer comes in the abrasive form of a rambunctious Declare Independence, although it's the gracious, timelessly great Jóga that brings a smidgen of redemption to what proves a perilously misguided set of song choices given her status as Bestival, and therefore UK festival terminator.
Swedish starlets
Niki & The Dove then whistle through an exhilarating set in the shadow of Sailor Jerry's makeshift tattoo parlour, beneath a lasting sheet of drizzle. Despite the trio's show being initially dogged by technical difficulties, The Fox sounds both gnarly and glittered even when devoid of percussive power, while the Eurovision-esque DJ Ease My Mind is where Robyn could be, how she could sound, were she not so emotionally torn and consequently stranded in a state of constant scorn. In the neighbouring Big Top,
DJ Shadow has hopped back inside that interactive blob of his, as it shape-shifts constantly and chameleonically according to his screened backdrop. From a flashing beacon, to a tennis ball, to the Death Star, Josh Davis is only fitfully discernible although the throb of recent number I Gotta Rokk, the Vek-featuring Warning Call from forthcoming record The Less You Know, The Better, and the now very much emptive strike Organ Donor are as glaringly perceptible as the fireworks that flare up overhead. Los Angelenos noiseniks
HEALTH are billed to close down the Psychedelic Worm, and as per the expectation is that their pulsating, skull-pummelling racket may quite literally, physically, close the thing down. Earplugs at the ready then. However when the quartet finally emerge amidst a storm of smoggy dry ice, while their setlist may be divinely concocted their noise never quite reaches its devilish, vital organ-destructing potential. Thankfully Die Slow remains brutal, John Famiglietti and Jupiter Keyes crawling over keyboards placed on the precipice of the stage, while Death+ sounds like untainted evil from behind radiant orange foam. Ears intact if clamouring uncontrollably, Bestival 2011 comes to a perspiration-sodden close, and with it another festival season passes into oblivion and impression. Prodigious thanks again go to Rob da Bank; the pleasure, the privilege was ours.
