Camp Bestival 2010 Review - (Part 3)

Sunday at Camp Bestival continued in exactly the same way as the two previous days. Perfect festival weather, an eclectic mix of music and good vibes all round.

The once Mercury nominated Seth Lakeman, a late addition to the bill, drew a significant crowd to the bandstand stage to witness him play songs from his new album Hearts and Minds as well as some older material. His rootsy hoedown and folkish marching songs got to the tribal core and soul of human emotion and went down a storm with many of those watching, a number of fans were soon up of their backsides and dancing.

As a few drops of rain began to fall The Wurzels (yes, some of them are still alive) brought the inner child out of every cider drinking adult with their scrumpy and western sound. Describing themselves as “The original boy band,” The Wurzels songs about two foot marrows, farmers and (of course) cider put a smile on the face, although when one of their number (who must be in his late 60’s or 70’s) stripped down to a g-string (honest) some smiles turned to looks of horror. A cover version of the Kaiser Chiefs Ruby complete with “Oo-ar-oo-ar,” chorus and a version of The Combine Harvester played out as a dance remix ensured that The Wurzels at least entertained.

Calvin Harris was a revelation. It may have been elementary and coarse with continued shouts for “let me see your hands,” and “everybody bounce,” but Harris succeeded through sheer force of enthusiasm and a back catalogue of hit singles that made a field of Camp Bestivalites become a few fries short of a happy meal. It was mental. Richter scale mental. The tallest man in electro pop wheeled out bangers bigger than Katie Price’s boob jobs and slammed them down so hard that we swear the ground actually shook under our feet. Songs such as Ready For The Weekend that on record sound like weedy electro pop designed not to upset Radio 1 playlisters took on a powerful, celebratory headrush that went straight to the stars. The biggest surprise of the weekend and then some.

There is a hypothesis that says that the influence of music blogs is less powerful than many bloggers themselves believe. Evidence in support of this argument was found in the Big Top, where the reasonably well blogged Visions of Trees (pictured) played to a virtually empty tent, save for some blissfully unaware children playing football, the odd punter who has come for a lay down and a few curious onlookers. However this doesn’t mean that the blogs have got it wrong - for Visions of Trees displayed an eerie rhythmic womb-like loveliness made up of otherworldly beats and ethereal vocals that was gorgeously wonderful. Lead singer Sara displayed an alluring reverb smothered voice and despite the non-audience she danced, swayed and performed as if lost in her own misty, dreamlike world.

Before the festival closed with an incredible firework display over Lulworth Castle Friendly Fires headlined the main stage, their cowbell-indie-funk a vehicle for lead singer Ed to shake his hips like a white disco-bound James Brown. With little banter except for urging the crowd to dance more and more, Friendly Fires seem determined to exhaust the audience - a result which in the main they achieve, even if occasionally their funky jams veered into moments of self indulgent jazziness. When Ed wasn’t shoving his face into his keyboard he danced like a man possessed with an energy that left Camp Bestival 2010 spent and wasted.

With that this superbly executed event was over for 2010 - it truly was fun for all the family.

Bestival 2009 - Part 2

After a quiet opening on the Thursday night with a screening of This Is Spinal Tap, some DJ’s and The Cuban Brothers gracing the ten thousand capacity Big Top, Bestival 2009 starts properly at Friday lunchtime with local electro brother sister duo Arcade Eden opening the main stage to a small crowd. Like a fertilization between Crystal Castles and The Ting Tings, the Isle Of Wight bleep kids set the scene with lead vocalist Clare twirling around arms aloft and sporting the shiniest figure hugging silver dress this side of the solar system. The bands sound is achingly now, full of computerized zap that would be better suited to the dance floors than an almost empty field, but they do a pretty good job of bringing the disco outside.

“This is the start of the festival, you’ve all had a bath and now you’re ready to get dirty,” announce Efterklang from the Big Top stage. Not that their Nordic orchestrations are in any way filthy. The bands expansive organic sound is just right for a little afternoon dreaminess, the lead vocalists humbleness seeming well pitched with an audience who have yet to rise to their feet. Trumpets and violins sweep and soar till eventually everyone gets up, the bands bold warmth coming up trumps.

A few days ago Breaking More Waves saw Passion Pit play one of the most exciting gigs we have seen this year in a sweaty club in Brighton. Today at Bestival a small young partisan crowd feel that excitement at the front of the main stage, but the groups performance is also tempered by a large number of curious onlookers. The studio trickery of the bands debut album is inevitably going to be difficult to produce live, but to Passion Pits credit they manage to force a bonanza of euphoric juddering synth sounds out into the space. Passion Pit will always be a band who polarise audiences such is the nature of the squealing asexual falsetto vocals, but those who can stand it will find their schmaltzy hooks infectious. When we first saw the band earlier this year (review here) lead singer Michael Angelakos was restricted by playing keyboards. This idea has now been ditched, Angelakos storming the stage with venom, leaving the music to his band members. It gives the band an extra energy and vibrancy that they haven’t had before, meaning that tracks such as the bouncing Make Light and the kids choir pop of Little Secrets leave you feeling stupidly great.

Part of what separates Bestival from other festivals is the way it mixes comic elements amongst the coolest bands and DJ’s.Barry Peters Halifax Hospital Radio are in their own words “Wrong but correct,” a Bestival institution fitting the comic bill perfectly. Bringing dance routines from the lycra clad camp duo Double Pentration and whole chunks of DJ cheddar Barry Peters asks us to “Don’t be shy show us your pie, don’t get nasty show us your pasty,” before introducing a track by his ‘ex girlfriend’ Gloria Estefan. If you fail to laugh at Barry Peters you obviously left your sense of humour at the gate when you came in.

The main stage continues with Friendly Fires. Now, we’ve seen this band several times before but today they are a revelation bringing a colourful adrenalin rush of funky disco beats and clattering percussion to get the dancing started. Lead singer Ed has possibly the most saucy spasming hips in the world; his lack of self conciousness in his dancing generating vibration in the audiences sexual organs. The man is possessed by the rhythm. Indie dance suddenly seems like a great idea. Jump In The Pool and Paris are tight and fit, the band sounding like gay sex with a straight man. It may be formulaic but when the formula adds up this nicely, why subtract anything ?

Regular readers will know that we love Florence and the Machine, and two of our favourite performances this year have come from young Florence. Maybe it’s a case of one too many gigs or the quiet volume at the side of the stage where we stand, but this time Florence fails to move us. Both Florence and her band are glamorous in green and gold, but her deranged passion seems lacking a little today, only Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) with its Italian house piano towards the end really igniting the fire as red as Florence's hair.

Opting to miss MGMT on the main stage, we instead seek out Little Boots who is performing a DJ set in the open air Rizla Arena under a gorgeous pinky orange sky; by all accounts its a good move on our part, reports reaching us that MGMT were atrocious. We can see today why Little Boots is called such - she can hardly see over the DJ booth. Whilst she's not the greatest of DJ's, she does a reasonable job, but suggest she keeps on with her main occupation for now.

So our final live band of the day before we dance into the night at the Afterburner stage are headliners Massive Attack. The band are dark, atmospheric and brooding, frostily touching with cold beats and opiate synths. Massive Attack are probably not the ideal band for a hedonistic and by now rather drunken audience, bringing subtle politics by way of an impressive dot matrix screen behind them that flashes messages such as Wordsworths “We must be free or die,” and the universal declaration of human rights. Vibrant party classics are not what you get from Massive Attack, instead an awkward but imposing moodiness is their realm. However as the set builds and Martina Topley-Bird is reunited with the band, the feeling seems to slowly lighten, the grooves becoming more fluid. Teardrop gets a huge cheer and Safe From Harm is a fist through glass explosion that shatters the night sky. The band communicate very little with the crowd except for when Robert Del Naja quips that it’s his sisters birthday which is “quite positive actually.” Massive Attack let the music do the talking, and that talk is earnest and deep not superficial chatter.

It’s our last band of the day, and as the site really lifts off into the early hours of the morning with a booming party vibrancy, the DJ’s continue our pleasure trip bringing the night to a superb close at the Afterburner (described in Part 1 and pictured above), with explosions of fire, searching spotlights and big big tunes. Its sets everything nicely up for Saturday.

Glasvegas + Friendly Fires + White Lies + Florence and the Machine @ Brighton Dome

The NME Awards tour is a curious beast that demonstrates the evolution of the publication itself. No longer the energised creative and inspiring musical and political force it once was, the NME of today is run by an editor who talks of ‘growing the brand’, features adverts for Top Man and has articles that are at best just sound bites. The NME represents corporate indie. Whereas once the NME used to rally against ‘The Man’ now the NME is ‘The Man’. This tour is evidence of this. On the bill is one artist (Florence and the Machine) who will in two days time receive a Brit Award, and a band (White Lies) who have recently had a number 1 album that has probably been purchased by as many forty something fathers as it has rebellious students. Its hardly edgy or dangerous is it ?

So how do these artists stack up tonight in Brighton ?

With flowers draped across instruments and wire birdcages hanging to each side, Florence And The Machine take to the stage with the Dome still over half empty. This is the straw drawn for being the opener of the so called ‘lucky’ slot of the tour, previously occupied by amongst others Coldplay, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs and The Coral. It doesn’t seem to bother Florence at all. Last time Breaking More Waves saw Florence we were slightly critical of her ‘act’ being too contrived. Tonight we take that back. Florence is a bluesy, guttural, sexual, screaming banshee with songs that are intense and primitively tribal. She is the sound of forthcoming armageddon but with a harpist rather than planets colliding. With a borrowed bass player from White Lies added to her band, Florence thrusts and cavorts in skin tight jeans in a way not seen since Pans People last graced Top of the Pops. Prowling the stage like a monster, she eventually launches into the audience to elicit the first screams of the night from the teenage girls down the front, and possibly a few teenage boys. The pop punk riot of Kiss With A Fist and the galloping chorus of Dog Days finishes everyone off, and frankly if the other bands all cancelled now, many people would have still gone home happy.

White Lies have clinical stadium ambitions and this is clearly demonstrated from the off. Farewell To The Fairground has dry ice, flashing strobes, big power chords and hands in the air. However this attempt at big moody indie rock tonight lacks emotional power, and rather like the album is all very much an exercise in one track darkness. It’s only when Florence appears again to duet on Unfinished Business does the mood change slightly. White Lies play well and are supremely confident, and in Death have written the perfect Killers go goth pop song, but there is a sense of unpleasant emptiness about their set.

After the gloom of White Lies, Friendly Fires appear under a warm red glow and white sparkles. “Hello we’re Friendly Fires from St Albans,” they chirp. Without a moments hesitation they launch into a set of incessant, rhythmic disco that gets the kids dancing, but leaves some of the older members of the audience scratching their heads. With stuttering, choppy beats Friendly Fires know how to funk even if they don’t yet know how to always write really catchy tunes. Wired front man Ed displays a neat line in indie geek rubber legged dancing which matches the strange and outlandish percussion of the music. The concert hall ambience of the Dome may not be the ideal venue for the bands sound, a sweaty sexed up indie disco would suit them better, but the band are happy to be here telling everyone “We’re so lucky to be playing such a beautiful building.” In Paris the band have managed to combine their ability to get your booty shaking with a decent song that is suitably layered over the fringes of electro pop. If they can write a few more like that for album two they could develop their fan base further.

With all of the other bands instruments now cleared, the stage appears barren except for huge stacks of amps and a blank screen. Strings of red lights and a projection of an angel statue appear as darkness falls. A repetitive synth sound echoes the arrival of Glasvegas.

To say that Glasvegas are immense tonight would be an understatement. Where White Lies try to be cinematic and appear hollow, Glasvegas have a sound that is bigger, more widescreen and dirtier than you could ever imagine. The tension of the chiming guitars produces layers of My Bloody Valentine noise combined with quiff vintage melodies that is handled perfectly by the Domes sound system. It’s a sound that you have to shut your eyes to and immerse yourself in. Glasvegas produce a majestic elegant beauty, a second coming of sorts, blinded by bright white lights and brilliant noise. Never before has Breaking More Waves witnessed the strange beauty of grown men singing along to a song that is sung in a heavy Glaswegian brogue with lyrics about a social worker and it seem so right. It is easy to imagine an orchestra playing these tunes. For forty five minutes Glasvegas are utterly glorious. When Ice Cream Van explodes like a bomb towards the end they must have been very close to blowing the roof of the building. As the band leave the stage images of Elvis and Celtic football team flash up on the screens behind. Then its over. There is no encore.

However it appears that not everyone felt like Breaking More Waves. Many of the younger indie kids dressed in their Primark and Top Shop fashions have left the building before the end, confused looks on their faces. And there for just one special moment, in amongst the beer glasses strewn across the emptying floor, it feels like the NME actually got it right. It became the alternative again.