Friday review

All right, all right – eFestivals, real reviews by real fans and their real experiences at the festivals. 99% of the time it’s a formula that works, but occasionally reality cocks up and leaves you stranded at Southampton ferry port until 7pm, meaning you don’t reach the Bestival site until near 10pm, meaning most of the first day is a total write-off.

Advice – If you’re going to Bestival next year (which you should, because it’s bloody brilliant), book you ferry EARLY and WELL IN ADVANCE or you’ll end up like me – a surly tit missing out on the party.

Getting back to the matter at hand – Bestival is with out a doubt the most brilliantly imaginative, wildly eclectic, lovingly executed and openly embracive festival that the UK has ever seen. For the past three years its closed the festival season with a glittering euphoria that caps the year gone by and gets you geared up with good vibes for the next. This is basically all you need to know, if you’ve got a good spirit there’ll be abundant pleasures for you at every turn in this giant escapist playground.

Meanwhile, my own Bestival 2006 kicked off with a frantic dash to catch the last ten minutes of Klaxons in the The Big Top Tent - a tent taken further than your average festival marquee, decorated with giant skeletons hanging from the ceiling. A glowstick fest that I was sorry to have missed so much of, it was still enough to make you realise that you’re about to embark on another quality weekend.

Straight over to the Main Stage and Gogol Bordello are regaling the crowd with perfectly-suited gypsy punk shenanigans. Taking the headline slot, they’re carrying on the tradition of Friday night being new-band-as-headliner night, last year adopted by The Magic Numbers. They do a fine job, thrashing out foot-stompers like “Not A Crime” and “Think Locally, Fuck Globally”, while 15,000 people dance, hug and get more drunk. “Start Wearing Purple” is a silly sing a long anthem that goes down a treat, but to be honest by this point the alcohol is settling in nicely and it gets a bit blurred.

Of course, this being Bestival, the music doesn’t end with the headliners... it keeps at it until 5am across the, count ‘em, 10 other stages. Scritti Politti are keeping the 80s spirit alive in the Rock ‘n’ Roll tent, and appear far more competent than they did a few months ago when they started out on this comeback malarkey.

Misty’s Big Adventure follow, with children’s TV indie-pop that shoots itself in the foot mere moments after their set begins, by making some rather crass pseudo-political statements about George Bush being Evil (yea, ok, he is... but don’t chuck the sentiments in for the sake of it).

Soon bored, off we trundle to DJ Yoda’s ridiculously busy set in the Fat Tuesday tent. He opens up with the Star Wars theme tune – hooray! From hereon in memory is lost, although I’m sure I found my way to the Come Dancing Saloon at one point before passing out. Sorry, not very professional – but when did being professional at a festival ever make things fun?

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