Sunday dawns with a fresh impetus to get on-site earlier, to see more, so I'm lucky enough to catch a snippet of Festival favourites The Cuban Brothers before pointing my feet toward the Big Top. The Unthanks, soon to tour with a set comprised of Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons' tunes, are gently drawing a crowd with beautiful music and cheeky banter. After enquiring if the audience like prog, a question that gets a cheer, the band finish their exquisite set with their take on a King Crimson song (the name of which, I'm ashamed to say, escapes me).
Whilst the techs do their thing Sly & Reggie, the Middle Class Sound System, do their best to keep the audience entertained before The Midnight Beast take the stage; the duo respond to the heckles with good humour, spinning out their iPod powered set with a bizarre and very English take on reggae. Finally the pair give in, unplug their MP3 player, and leave (sadly before singing their excellent song extolling the joys of libraries) and the trio of reprobates that is The Midnight Beast appear.
Now I'll have to hold my hand up here, I've never heard of the band (on first seeing the name I mistakenly thought I'd be in for some rock), but their broad humoured shenanigans brought a smile to my face. Expletive packed pop parodies, digging sharply at the blandness of boy bands, are supplemented by reworked covers of Ke$ha's Tik Tok and Rebecca Black's Friday. All good fun it must be said, but I don't think I'll be able to watch the Teletubbies ever again.
Having spent the time it took for my breakfast porridge to cool poring over the festival programme it looks like the Psychedelic Worm is the place to spend a Sunday afternoon. A couple of years ago José González was everywhere; his cover of The Knife's Heartbeats shifted almost as many TVs as it did CDs. Before that though he was a core member of Gothenburg trio Junip and, now returned to the fold, they entertain a near capacity crowd in the Psychedelic Worm with a set nicely mixing new material with older tunes.
Norwegian pop folk band Katzenjammer follow; an all female foursome who delight with their upbeat tunes and musical versatility, swopping instruments throughout the set in a well rehearsed manner. Their european hit A Bar In Amsterdam got a few whoops from the audience, notably from a small contigent of the band's countrywomen, but it's their take on Genesis' Land of Confusion that caused my draw to drop open.
If The Cure's set the night before had been my expected highlight then John Grant usurps Robert Smith of this honour. The Denver native informs us that, as he's been touring his debut solo album for the past 18 months, it's probably the last time we'll hear a Queen of Denmark set. New material is on the way he promises. With his powerful vocals and honest, humorous lyrics filling the tent it feels like one big warm hug, so enraptured are we by the tall man in the beany hat on stage. Finishing with the album's title track there is a palpable feeling of "that festival moment" in the tent; half our party are in tears, behind us a man is comforting his wife, she also wet of eye. Such is the power of John Grant.
After all the emotion something more light hearted was required before the Björk experience. The Polka Tent, tucked away in a corner of The Grassy Hill, had offered all manner of delights over the weekend. Maybe a Scouse Bluegrass band wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but they certainly did the trick. Loose Moose's countryfied cover of Alexander O'Neal's Criticize I'm sure there was a prize offered for knowing who originally sang Live It Up (Australian one hit wonders Mental As Anything) but I decided not to claim it. Leaving Sky 3D's crack team of camera toting man machines, all lined up to record the cowboy themed striptease (including wooden pony) that followrd for three dimensional posterity, I moved on to the Main Stage for the Queen of Icelandic Delights, the one and only Björk.
When Björk was announced as Bestival's last headline act I must admit I did a woop of joy (mentally if not vocally, I tend not to woop out loud too much if I can help it). Björk continues to surprise, delight and frustrate with equal measure with every release; her new material, apparently inspired by nature programmes and David Attenbrough, has been dispatched to the world via an interactive iPad application. Her Bestival set, featuring a large chunk of this new material, should have been another golden festival moment. Instead, sadly, I felt an ever growing feeling of disconnectedness as the set progressed; try as I might I couldn't hook into whatever the important message Björk was trying to get across. It could've been my distance from the stage, maybe the vast number of festival wasters and talkers I appeared to be surrounded by, but I'm staking my money on the pounding bass travelling over from the Big Top that over-powered Björk's vocals. Imagine listening to your favourite album whilst the neighbours are cranking up the Black Eyed Peas to eleven. There you go. Admittedly, and by her own admission, her festival set wasn't going to be exactly crowd friendly but a small woman in a ginger wig, frolicking seemingly out of time to two songs at once, doesn't help. On the plus side at least the power of her backing choir cut soared over the neighbouring sounds. Unfortunately, after an hour of feeling ever more like poking out the eyes of the oiks surrounding me, I gave up and headed for Sailor Jerry's to wait for Niki & The Dove to appear.
Sitting in Bollywood, watching the world walk past on its way to one tent or another, I had a chance to think back over the weekend; as my first taste of Bestival I can safely say that I enjoyed it and will definitely return. I'm not a big fan of hills but, seriously, I don't think there's much Rob Da Bank can do about that. And hipster wasters in silly hats are a necessary evil of festivals, without them who would the rest of us punters point and laugh at? The fireworks fire off overhead and the magic starts to fade. I stand, point my feet in the direction of The Black Dahlia one last time, and prepare to ruin some more ligaments.
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