Camp Bestival 2018: washed up pop sludge ahoy

[Yossarian]

So is a perfect family orientated festival one has acts that are so shit you don't mind missing them if some calamity befalls your child?

Probably ensures marital harmony as well, when parents take turns having early nights.

"Why don't you go to the main stage tonight while I put in earplugs and tuck in the kids?"

"Noooo, I insist, after you..."

 

[editor]

Probably ensures marital harmony as well, when parents take turns having early nights.

"Why don't you go to the main stage tonight while I put in earplugs and tuck in the kids?"

"Noooo, I insist, after you..."

"It's Rick Astley in half an hour!"
"Early night?"
"Good call...!

 

[clandestino]

So is a perfect family orientated festival one has acts that are so shit you don't mind missing them if some calamity befalls your child?

Actually, kind of yes. Not a calamity as such, but if you go to a festival with kids, you have to accept that you're going to spend a large percentage of your time not seeing bands, and spending time doing kids stuff - at the circus field, playing games somewhere, at the cinema tent, etc, etc. So the last thing you want is a packed schedule of bands you really want to see, because it's going to hurt when you miss half of them. The perfect family oriented festival has a fair smattering of bands you like, and a load of stuff you don't care about. So you can mix seeing bands with doing other stuff.

 

[Cloo]

Looks about right for a family-oriented festival - some excellent kids' stuff and a smattering of good acts like Orbital, PWEI, Undertones, Skatalites etc.

And if you need to miss all the headliners or even leave a day or two early because one kid has got an ear infection or whatever, you're not going to give a shit or feel like you're missing out on anything.

Kind of my thoughts... we're planning on going as some mates are going (I can totally leave the headliners) but the fact is, as a family festy you don't really want it to be non-stop brilliance for the reasons you mention. There's a couple of acts I'd like to see, a few more I wouldn't mind having on in the background, so that's about right really given we'd have to be balancing it with kid demands and levels of stamina!

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

I did monitors for Rick Astley last year, he’s great. Lovely bloke who knows exactly who his audience is and plays up to the part perfectly

 

[Silas Loom]

I did monitors for Rick Astley last year, he’s great. Lovely bloke who knows exactly who his audience is and plays up to the part perfectly

Who is his audience? Is it his contemporaries, or is it youngsters who have grown up with rickrolling and think of him as iconic?

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Who is his audience? Is it his contemporaries, or is it youngsters who have grown up with rickrolling and think of him as iconic?

A large percentage of now middle aged women with a healthy level of support from gay men seemed to be the usual mix

 

[mauvais]

I dunno about Camp Bestival, or to be fair the most recent few Bestivals, but I went to Bestival proper several times and it was never really massively about the music, especially not headliners. Much more about having a good time in a cool setup. This looks like it probably has the same potential in its own way.

 

[clandestino]

Kind of my thoughts... we're planning on going as some mates are going (I can totally leave the headliners) but the fact is, as a family festy you don't really want it to be non-stop brilliance for the reasons you mention. There's a couple of acts I'd like to see, a few more I wouldn't mind having on in the background, so that's about right really given we'd have to be balancing it with kid demands and levels of stamina!

Check out Jane Weaver, who sticks out like a sore thumb on that bill.

 

[Cloo]

Don't know her stuff, will look it up.

 

[editor]

I did monitors for Rick Astley last year, he’s great. Lovely bloke who knows exactly who his audience is and plays up to the part perfectly

He always comes across as a lovely bloke. But he's not my idea of a headline festival act!

 

[editor]

I dunno about Camp Bestival, or to be fair the most recent few Bestivals, but I went to Bestival proper several times and it was never really massively about the music, especially not headliners. Much more about having a good time in a cool setup. This looks like it probably has the same potential in its own way.

Bestival never appealed to me. For some reason it always conjured up pictures of young professionals donning afro wigs and being wacky all weekend.

*I understand this may be unfair

 

[mauvais]

Bestival never appealed to me. For some reason it always conjured up pictures of young professionals donning afro wigs and being wacky all weekend.

*I understand this may be unfair

You're way off. It was really good, best of the larger festivals I've been to, I think. I gather it had problems with getting the numbers and scale in recent years.

 

[Dr. Furface]

Check out Jane Weaver, who sticks out like a sore thumb on that bill.

That's what I thought too - think she needs to have a word with her booking agent

 

[Orang Utan]

doesn't look that much different to Glasto

 

[William of Walworth]

doesn't look that much different to Glasto

Have you been to either?

Camp Bestival is massively different. We went there in 2008, almost entirely because we reckoned it might be the last time Chuck Berry could be playing in the UK** (Deb's a huge R & R fan, and like myself, she'd never seen him).

**Correct prediction as it turned out, and his gig .... wasn't too bad

We disliked lots of other aspects of CB and its lineup though.

Even some parents find it just that bit too family/child dominated, we've been reliably told.

The traffic into the site that year was beyond badly stewarded/badly organised too, about the worst of any festival we've ever been to, even with the weather being good! .. and we missed a genuinely good band, Kitty Daisy and Lewis, because of that as well

We've not been back to CB and have no plans to.

Glastonbury on the other hand .....

 

[Orang Utan]

I've been to Glastonbury. when it was good.

 

[rubbershoes]

Anyone defending the line up has obviously overlooked...

Fearne Cotton - DJ set

It can't get worse than that

 

[discokermit]

stupida fahkin thread.
skatalites on the bill, wiki says lester stirling still in the lineup. worth the money for that alone.

 

[William of Walworth]

I've been to Glastonbury. when it was good.

Still can be and usually is for us, admittedly working there gives us a diffeent perspective. And we're not short of reservations nowadays either .... we can leave all that out of this thread though

My main point though was that Camp Bestival resembled Glastonbury hardly at all, and I stand by that.

 

[Orang Utan]

Still can be and usually is for us, admittedly working there gives us a diffeent perspective. And we're not short of reservations nowadays either .... we can leave all that out of this thread though

My main point though was that Camp Bestival resembled Glastonbury hardly at all, and I stand by that.

I said that it looks like Glastonbury to me. It does.

 

[William of Walworth]

I don't get that, the differences are huge. But I'll leave this, we'll never agree.

 

[Orang Utan]

I don't get that, the differences are huge. But I'll leave this, we'll never agree.

Yeah, you did waste your time with your first response as I didn't get beyond the first sentence of it

 

[editor]

stupida fahkin thread.
skatalites on the bill, wiki says lester stirling still in the lineup. worth the money for that alone.

You going then?

 

[colacubes]

Still can be and usually is for us, admittedly working there gives us a diffeent perspective. And we're not short of reservations nowadays either .... we can leave all that out of this thread though

My main point though was that Camp Bestival resembled Glastonbury hardly at all, and I stand by that.

I think that’s unfair. I’ve been to both (for context I went to Camp Bestival on a freebie through work a few years ago and have been going to Glastonbury since the mid 90s) and Camp Bestival is a bit like tiny bits of Glastonbury. They’re bits I wouldn’t choose to go to on the whole, and I suspect you wouldn’t either because you haven’t got kids and neither have I. But it’s there. In a smaller way. I had a jolly old time at Camp Bestival when I went (Richard Hawley was ace ) but I wouldn’t pay for a ticket. But then I’m not their target audience.

That said the bogs were pretty shit on the whole.

As an addendum I also went to Bestival proper once and thought it was fucking dreadful. Getting our tent robbed on the 1st night didn’t help, but the infrastructure was fucking terrible and the sound was terrible for most bands. Only festival I’ve ever left early and that says something when I’ve coped with a lot of Glastonbury mudbaths.

 

[ska invita]

let's not forget Glastonbury had headliners like Rolf Harris and kiley minogue. Rickrolling everyone on the opening night is almost funny. Bangface had that donk crew on opening night last year, i think that's the spirit of it

 

[sealion]

For some reason it always conjured up pictures of young professionals donning afro wigs and being wacky all weekend.

Nu Brixton has really got to you I saw a few posh divs with the wigs at the last splash i attended

 

[discokermit]

You going then?

as i have literally no source of income since my benefits were stopped and am depending on charity for food, no.

 

[editor]

let's not forget Glastonbury had headliners like Rolf Harris and kiley minogue. Rickrolling everyone on the opening night is almost funny. Bangface had that donk crew on opening night last year, i think that's the spirit of it

You can't really call it a rickroll when his name is on the fucking bill in huge letters.

I've no idea what a donk crew but if it involved that utter twat Shaun Keeney or whateverhisnameis from BBC6 I hope large bottles of urine were sent stageward.

 

[ska invita]

rick Astley is a bit ironic guilty pleasure like a number of glasto bookings. Donk is a pretty silly strain of northern dance music given comedy prime time slot at Bangface in the name of good fun. Clean Bandit are a massive successful pop act popular with young teens with a number of top ten tunes from a couple of years back.