Arrival and Setting Up
We got the ferry over from Lymington to Yarmouth at about 1.30pm on the Thursday. There were no traffic problems getting into Lymington whatsoever and getting on the ferry was very quick and easy. I spoke to my mate at the dock who's been to Bestival several times on several different ferry routes who told me this was the quietest and best route by far.
On reaching the island we managed to get lost pretty much straight away, We had been expecting some makeshift signs pointing us in the way of the festival from the ferry port, but there were none. Never mind, we got there after a few detours, and parked up in the field (£10 for the whole weekend). It seemed that everyone was arriving at this time and the fields filled up quickly. We then discovered we had brought way too much stuff, and that our makeshift trolley was not going to suffice at all.
We hired a large heavy duty trolley from 'Mr Trolley' a company set up near the entrance. This cost £5 per half hour and a £50 deposit. It made our life a bit easier and we eventually found a spot to camp in the Black camping site. On pitching up we had a few beverages and made our way into the festival site itself, which was about a 20min walk from our campsite.
Friday
Friday we took an opportunity to check out the site in daylight. It's spread over quite a large area, in picturesque Robin Hill. The two main areas are The Fantasy Field (containing the Main Stage and The Big Top, the two main arenas), and The Fire Field (containing The Bollywood Tent and Arcadia Presents The Spider Stage, the next two main arenas). There are also The Magic Meadow and Tomorrow's World areas. In amongst all the main stages are loads of little dance areas, bars, chillout spots, food stalls, cigarette stands etc etc.
First impressions were good, it all looks very exciting and the grass around the site was lovely and plush and green, with plenty of spaces to sit and chill. Drinks were £4 for a pint of Lager, £4.10 for a cider, if you were lucky enough to find somewhere actually selling pints. Most places only seemed to sell cans at £4 a pop, which did sting a bit (a lot). You also weren't allowed to take alcohol from the campsites into the festival site, so you were kind of bound to paying these silly prices. Still, sneaking booze in was possible later in the evening. The food stands were varied and the quality seemed quite high, prices were fairly standard festi - £5 for a burger, £6-£8 for main meals. Still, eating wasn't high on our agenda so enough said about that.
First act we properly caught was Example on the main stage. I don't really know a lot about this artist, but i have to say he absolutely smashed it with some huge drum n bass/dubstep/urban type tunes. The soundsystem on the main stage is very impressive, hugely bassy, and one of the best large systems i have experienced, the average sized crowd at 2.30pm were certainly enjoying it, and he definitely got the 3 of us up and dancing.
After Example we went to check out Four Tet in the Big Top. We went in from the bottom and unfortunately the first thing that struck me was how quiet the music was. It sounded quality, but i need music that rumbles in my very soul, and this certainly wasn't it. Four Tet's intelligent tunes were certainly wasted on me that day as we couldn't be bothered to push to the front to be near the speakers. NOTE TO BESTIVAL ORGANISERS - IN A TENT THAT BIG, PLEASE PUT SPEAKERS AT THE BACK TOO! The Big Top was very large though, and i reasoned they may turn it up later in the day, i hoped to see it going off several times that weekend.
The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around chatting shit to random people and exploring the rest of the site, before we headed again to the main stage to watch Simian Mobile Disco. I'm a big fan of these guys and wasn't disappointed. It was great to see such underground music blasting out of a Main Stage system . They played all their big tunes, Audacity of Huge becoming our Stuck-in-your-head-anthem of the weekend, finishing with a fantastic rendition of Sleep Deprivation.
We then left one of our mates who wanted to watch Dizzee to go and check out the double header of Magda followed by Richie Hawtin as Plastikman in The Big Top. On entering it seemed they hadn't made it any louder so we pushed our way to the front to check out the first lady of techno, Magda. I'd never seen her before but have many of her mixes so was really looking forward to her. She started off slowly with some luxurious, intelligent techno. Being near the front it was reasonably loud, but still not quite the volume level i was craving. However, as Magda picked up the pace and her music got chunkier and harder i forgot all about that and got down to some serious raving. Her set got better and better, by the time Richie Hawtin was due to come on I would have been happy with 4 more hours of Magda, but then it was her time to hand over to her 'boss.'
Richie Hawtin as Plastikman (hereafter known as RHAP) was one of the artists i was most looking forward to, and he seriously did not let us down. A large domed video screen was revealed, showing some nice visuals as the intro music started. As the music kicked in proper i realised this was going to be a proper acid techno set, it was perfect for the time and the place. Big room music in a big room full of ravers absolutely lapping it up. As the set went on, RHAP was revealed in silhouette behind the giant screen, it was a nice effect. He finished off by coming to the front of the stage with some sort of drum machine thing to play his final tune, which was of course Spastik. It went down an absolute storm, I left the big top a happy boy.
Plastikman - Spastik
Headed over to the Arcadia Spider stage which is a giant, apocalypic, fire-breathing construction with a couple of DJ booths. Anyone who's been to Glasto in the last couple of years will have seen it and know how insane it is. This was to be our 'go to' arena throughout the weekend, whenever nothing else was on we'd always head over there. The music was nearly always good and nearly always underground. Drum n Bass and Dubstep seemed to be the staple, but the huge basslines seemed to fit perfectly with the fire-breating mental-ness of that place. The soundsystem here was very good, and the arena itself was large, with many different places to rock out, or simply to sit and chill.
We wandered around the rest of the site poking our head in here, stopping to chill there. The Bollywood tent had a quality soundsystem, although still nowhere near loud enough for me. The rest of the night is hazy, we went back to our tents at some point where the night disolved into proper carry on naughtyness with assorted neighbours.
Saturday
Eventually hit the sack at 1pm Saturday afternoon, which meant Saturday day was a write off. Woke up in my tent about 8pm to hear a distant Mumford and Sons getting huge cheers from the main stage. Was slightly gutted to have missed them, but Bestival for me is more about the nightime so i was glad i would be fresh for the evening ahead.
We got dressed up in our 3 Muskateers outfits and hit the festival site again. Chilled in the Meadow bit above the main stage listening to Roxy Music before finding a spot to watch The Flaming Lips. To be perfectly honest, i've not heard a lot of their stuff before and i won't be overly bothered to search any out after this. Not to say i didn't enjoy them, i did, but for a Saturday headliner the crowd was sparse and not at all up for it and their music just did not fit the Bestival bill in my opinion. Too much introspective stuff and not enough big beats and anthems. Still, it was just the start of my evening so they weren't a bad way to ease into the flow of things again.
Afterwards we headed over to Arcadia again to catch the end of their 'Spectacular' which is loads of firebreathing from the stage and an insane thing halfway up the hill which fires a huge electric bolt between two points which is seriously startling and impressive the first time you witness it. Then 2 guys climb on top of these pillars and have a fight with lightning. Literally. It's really something to see, especially if your mind is somewhat twisted already. We then saw Fake Blood followed by The Audio Bullys who all hit us with some quality tech house, techno and twisted electro. The Audio Bullys would be great without the MC-ing .
The rest of the night involved visits to The Silent Disco, Chai Wallahs, Bollywood, loads of random little tents, and ultimately ended with me chatting complete drivel to a kindly woman at the Samaritans tent. More tent shenanigans when I eventually made it back, this carried on to the next day and we decided to bin the idea of bed and simply man up.
Sunday
Went to the Tomorrows World area overlooking the whole site and spent a good part of the afternoon in the sun chilling which was bliss. Used this time to drink about 8 litres of water and rehydrate my ravaged body
We then went to check out Echo and The Bunnymen. The main stage was very quiet so we got close to the front. They are a quality band, although i didn't really know a lot of their material, they certainly put on a good show. 'The Killing Moon' was my highlight of their set and got the biggest cheer from the crowd.
Next Chase and Status absolutely rocked the main stage. Didn't think i would like these guys at all, but i really did. The crowd had massively filled up by this point and everyone was really up for it. The atmosphere was great and everyone really embraced the huge dubstep, drum n bass etc tunes sounding great on that quality soundsystem.
Next up - The Prodigy. Say what you want about these guys, but they still know how to destroy a dancefloor. From the moment the Prodigy's rig started getting wheeled out during Rob Da Bank's warmup set the anticipation started reaching fever pitch. I grew up with these guys, and yes their recent albums have not been as good as their old ones, yes they may have gone a bit pantomime, but WOW i was massively impressed with them. Huge beats, huge anthems, the crowd going mental, the lights going mental, my first ever Prodigy gig was as good as i'd hoped it would be. The biggest crowd of the weekend could surely not have been disappointed with this fantastic finale. Afterwards the huge bonfire (and i mean HUGE) was lit and a massive fireworks display was set off, a nice way to close the main stage.
But Bestival was not over, lots of stages were still open and we went and checked out Dixon in the Bollywood tent who played some of my favourite music of the whole weekend. Chunky, driving but deep techno, the place was packed and rocking.
We then wandered round popping in and out of various tents but it was getting cold by now, and with lots of places closing their doors at 2am, the place had a real air of being over already. We headed back to the tents and actually went to sleep, our tanks were empty by this point i think. Was glad the next morning though, as there's nothing worse than packing up all your tent and stuff after an all-nighter.
Leaving the site was no problem, and the ferry over was trouble free. The drive home to Cornwall was less fun....
General Thoughts
Crowd was generally very young. I am 28 and the average age must have been 20-24. I don't have a problem with this, but i think it did contribute somewhat to the lack of atmosphere in some of the larger stages. It also meant that at some of the late night venues the music was catering to these younger ravers - i heard a lot of questionable Drum n Bass and Dubstep played later on. I have no problems with this type of music per se, but i heard some horrendous remixes!!
Campsite was a good 20min walk to the action. This is unnacceptable in my book, especially after experiencing Glastonbury where you can camp among the stages. You miss the simple pleasure of being able to nip back to the tent.
Soundsystems - Nothing wrong with the quality of the sound but generally i felt most places were too quiet, especially Bollywood and The Big Top. Dunno why this is, but it would really put me off going again.
Afterhours - Come 4/5am we were wondering around looking for proper raving rooms still open. There wasn't enough in the way of proper afterhours, this would be a great addition to the festival.
Overall - A quality rave in a great location with a good crowd and some fantastic artists playing. If they address some of the issues i have mentioned i will go back for sure.
