Bestival 2009 - Part 1

After the mud and mayhem of Bestival 2008, high ball smiles and sun for miles returned for Bestival 2009. A glorious weekend intoxicated with perfect festival weather meant that Rob Da Bank and his organising crew could thankfully jump out of their wellies and into their sandals.

Bestival 2009 meant colour, character and conviviality. Oh, there was some damn good music as well.

The biggest change for 2009 involved the relocation of the main stage to a new spot at the top of a slope to ensure that should adverse weather conditions similar to 2008 hit the Isle Of Wight, the party could continue. Unfortunately this lead to some fundamental issues with poor sound for those who weren’t close to the stage and sight lines for those further back. You can read what a variety of punters thought about this by clicking here.

Breaking More Waves has been attending Bestival since the inaugural event and has witnessed the site grow from its boutique beginnings to the relatively large party it is now. And whilst it has yet to morph into the full ugly corporate monster that is a Reading or a V Festival, there are signs year by year that more and more corporate partners are being involved. This year Pizza Express and TK Maxx had a presence on site and Red Bull, Rizla, X Box and Jim Beam were all sponsoring stages. Bestival does however still retain plenty of its quirky charm, from the W.I Tea tent serving tea and cake at the top of the site with wonderful views available, to a gazebo in the woods featuring all sorts of strange goings on. Then there was the now traditional fancy dress day where thousands of Bestivalites dressed as robots, aliens and other assorted space themed characters (as well as a collective of Freddie Mercurys, see video below) to dance well into the night. Much of this dancing was done at the new Afterburner; a 360 degree stage formed from silver jet engine components with fire, smoke and lighting effects blasting from it. It created a centre piece for DJ’s to perform from and transform the end of the site into something resembling a film set from Mad Max. The Afterburner was utterly spectacular and one of the highlights of Bestival 2009.

Besides the DJ’s, burlesque performances, cream teas, comedy and circus that was available Breaking More Waves also caught up with a significant number of bands, and the next three parts of this blog, published over the next three days will focus on some of these live acts that we caught from quiet anti folk to electro pop.