Bestival 2014

Beck, making a rare return to UK shores, is among the richest pickings. Grabbing party spirit by the bedazzled jumpsuit collar, it’s a smooth-sailing set of huge hits, and dropping into ‘Loser’ just two songs in, is a statement of intent. The big guns come along with a smattering of covers for good measure; Beck’s take on ‘Billie Jean’ turns The Big Top into a karaoke bar of the highest, rowdiest calibre. Cate Le Bon is on top form the following morning. “The smoke’s getting in my eyes,” informs Le Bon in a thick Welsh accent, “I’m not being emotional and weird.” Picking out riffs with the barely-there exertion of flicking a tiddlywink, Le Bon might have an understated stage presence, but she’s in control the whole time, whether delivering the ringing high-note of ‘Duke’, or defiantly turning a pesky unhooked strap into a new and unusual way to do the waltz with a guitar.

Madrid’s Deers make their UK festival debut the other side of the site. Sound problems and a broken guitar delay their set, with rumours of a broken kazoo also abound. The midst of chaos that seems to accompany Hurricane Deers, though, makes their live show stand out. All grins and raucous, slightly haphazard shouting, what Deers lack in polish, they make up for in sheer charm. Tune-Yards, meanwhile, has bought along every percussion instrument in Oakland to commemorate her final show on this summer’s festival circuit. The Big Top is brimming for Merrill Garbus’ late afternoon set, an afro-beat propelled haze of erratic bleeping and blooping, painstakingly constructed in real-time. It feels like being trapped inside a Nintendo's motherboard, while Garbus describes it as playing a show in a giant playground.

Disclosure are billed on the main stage, and taking them out of their usual habitat of gloomy, sweaty light-pulsing tents seems like a risky decision. On one hand their set tonight seems to represent the wider feeling that festivals these days are flag-bearing for an increasingly diverse ton of music. Then again, Disclosure’s massive arsenal of Main Stage-worthy material doesn’t quite match their current, developing, staging and a lot of their concentrated euphoria seems to get gobbled up into thin air. Friday headliners Outkast are largely carried by the huge hulk of crowd nostalgia for the likes of ‘Ms. Jackson’, ‘Roses’ and the infamous ‘Hey Ya’. Outside of that sphere, things do, undoubtedly, dip a little bit. "We're not gonna talk y'all to death,” they quip in response, “if you don't know us by now you never will." Carrying festival-goers through to dawn is a duty best left to Caribou, and he does so blissfully.

After the storming success of ‘Smother’, Wild Beasts soundtrack another muggy evening, hooting and howling the sprawling hill facing the main stage into a dreamy state. It’s the last chance for a moment of reflection before taking up residence in The Big Top for Darkside. Nicolas Jaar and Dave Harrington’s staging criteria was probably a sheet of paper with the words ‘mad-intense atmosphere’ written on it in marker, and silhouetted by billowing dry-ice, the pair’s record, ‘Psychic’ transforms into a fearsome beast of hulking electronica live. A final hurrah before Darkside go into hiatus, it’s an outstanding farewell. Continuing the theme of next-level tinkery that gives conventional genre the middle finger is SBTRKT, here with an inflatable panther, and a set heavy with material from new album ‘Wonder Where We Land’. The likes of ‘NEW DORP NEW YORK’ come into their own; less well-known new releases, not so much. Give them a few months, though, and the takeover will be complete. A painful clash between Foals and Bonobo has been a hot campsite topic all weekend, and revellers flocking to the latter leaves Foals' headline set slightly depleted, but no less stunning. Representing boundary-hopping with roots in dance and rock respectively, these two billings are what Bestival is all about.

It’s been a popular point of contention that 2014’s festivals, heavy with electronic wares, somehow ‘demonstrate’ that festival-going youth these days are homogenous, BPM-fuelled young things, wandering free from any discernible identity, and detached from any kind of music tribe. What a load of actual codswallop.

If any proof is needed that those here at Bestival – a young crowd, admittedly – are discerning, music lovers worthy of more respect, take a look at the masses descending onto Chic, or the cultish gatherings of DnB enthusiasts gathering at The Port. Get swept away by the manic circle pits at a health-and-safety flouting Major Lazer, or drop in on Skream’s early hours marathon at the Bollywood Tent, a tent literally dripping sweat from the low ceilings. As everyone comes together to watch Nile Rodgers raise the world’s largest disco ball (Guinness official, and everything) in a blur of fireworks, the tribes at Bestival are as alive ever. This audience, though, isn’t shy of exploring every single one of them.

Photos: Matt Richardson

Tags: Foals, Bestival, Festivals, Reviews, Live Reviews