It's ironic that the golden rule of capitalism is at work in something as historically left-of-centre as festivals. This summer the power of the market is separating the wheat from the chaff in festival-land.
The beauty of it is, that whilst money may be able to book a big headliner,? it requires imagination to create a festival that fills a gap in the market. Sure, the results might not always be nice (the unwelcome rumours that the marvellous Truck Festival may be bust for instance) but it's sure to guarantee that no-one?s complacent.
Camp Bestival was started as a more family-friendly version of Bestival. As the popularity of taking kids to festivals has grown, so has this (now medium sized) festival. The Sunday Best lot know their audience and they have enough confidence in their own instincts that they don't feel the need to schedule the acts in order of record sales. An obvious example is the headliner on Friday night. Other festivals might relegate Blondie to a tent, and stick the flavour of the year on the main stage, but Sunday Best know their audience. Obvious really since the man in charge is a DJ (Rob Da Bank) and therefore has an intuitive grasp of what the next tune should be.
The audience are mainly grown-ups with small children so the audience find themselves watching Primal Scream on the same stage as Zingzillas had been on seven hours earlier.
As well as a smart line-up, there's the detail. Everywhere you turn there's something else to gawp at or examine which makes the place feel twice as big.
The upside to the family focus is that it's very safe and there's distractions in every direction. The downside is that having hundreds of families on site is that they are essentially hundreds of self-contained units. They?re harmless, polite and friendly but can be a bit insular. They?ve planned everything, but at festivals, being a bit unprepared gives you a great excuse to talk to strangers. Anyone can have fun there but the people getting the most out of it were parents enjoying the chance to party with their children present and then, once the parents are in bed, teenagers enjoying the chance to finally party without them present.
Who did we see? Well here?s some one-sentence reviews?
Blondie reminded everyone how much they loved Blondie. Ed Sheeran seems to have become a teen idol for people who think Frank Turner?s too old. Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer is still making knees bend and lips giggle with his ?chap-hop?. House of Pain have turned into a funk band with rapping and damn it, it works! Ms Dynamite has made the standard (but successful) move towards dubstep, but needs to be aware that having recorded backing vocals is where live hip-hop is in danger of becoming karaoke. Primal Scream are pure nostalgia- Screamadelica may sound of it's time but it was a time that the audience are getting to enjoy again. The Wonder Stuff may have never broken barriers like the Scream but for our money they've got more pop classics. Beardyman is a clever clever bastard and the perfect man for a party.The Correspondents is like a hip-hop jive bunny winning Britain?s Got Talent- we don't know if it was awful or brilliant but we couldn't stop watching.
If you want to have a weekend where you can have as much fun as your kids, Camp Bestival is still the obvious choice.
Early Bird tickets (with a 6 mth family payment plan) for next year?s event can be found at the Camp Bestival website.
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