The Wurzels go down a storm on last day of Camp Bestival

Camp Bestival 2010 review

By Helen Brown / Gary Walker | Published: Fri 6th Aug 2010

Camp Bestival 2010 - around the festival site (finale)
Photo credit: Helen Brown / Gary Walker

Camp Bestival 2010

Friday 30th July to Sunday 1st August 2010
Lulworth Castle, Dorset, BH20 5QS, England MAP
adult weekend camping £155, child age 11-17 £77.50, under 10s free - SOLD OUT

Mr Tumble's back for more at the start of day three of Camp Bestival, with a rise and shine 11.15am set, this time on the Castle Stage. What's on offer today is a carbon copy of his Friday performance on the bandstand, same songs, same jokes, same dance routines, same slightly feigned laughter from our clown hero in all the same places, but that’s OK because he’s brilliant and we love him.

Justin Fletcher aka Mr Tumble
Later on in the programme, we're treated to a right old Cockney knees-up as another loveable old stager with a cherished back catalogue takes over the Castle Stage.

Chas and Dave became Chas And His Band earlier this year after an amicable split and the departure of Dave Peacock. Chas Hodges continues to keep alive the band's three decades of boogie woogie, rock n roll East End anthems.

Sat behind his keyboard in black sports jacket and white chinos, he's in fine form despite the absence of his erstwhile partner - who he mentions fondly in anecdotes before pretty much every song in today's vastly enjoyable set.

We're treated to all of the band's old favourites – 'Margate', 'London Girl', and 'Mr Ruby' are all rattled off by a band obviously enjoying themselves a great deal, before the brilliant, rib-tickling 'Gertcha', introduced as "Me and Dave's first top-20 hit."

Chas fires off a version of 'Roll Over Beethoven' before bringing out a couple of the band's biggest hitters - the ridiculous 'Snooker Loopy' and 'Rabbit' - the latter getting a huge ovation as a fairly small crowd attempt to dance off their Pinot Grigio hangovers.

The old Cockney charmer casually tells a tale about touring with Jerry Lee Lewis, while playing bass in The Outlaws and a musical tribute follows, before he wraps things up with 'The Sideboard Song' and leaves to a large, heartfelt roar.

Tel Aviv nine-piece The Apples are up next and they arrive with a growing reputation as a captivating live act behind them.

With two DJs, sporting luminous green jumpsuits, and a four-strong brass section, they immediately set out their stall with some rumbling bass and large amounts of funk, while the truntablists fire off samples and scratching, creating a dense, danceable groove. In a dark, basement club it would sound terrific, but out in the Dorset countryside, on a large stage and watched by a pretty small audience it all feels a bit incidental and the Israelis fail to hold the attention.

Uncomplicated country folk, The Wurzels encourage comfortably the biggest crowd of the day so far to "raise a drink and join in".

44 years on from their formation, they're still wheeling out the same old jokes - sample material "You know that Ricky Martin? I liked his dad - Doc" and their act mysteriously continues to go down a storm.

around the festival site (2)
After 'What A Beauty' we're told that the band's recording engineer prefers to be called 'Ivor Big 'Un' - get it?

Frontman Pete Budd continually encourages the Camp Bestival crowd to strip off - seemingly unconcerned that he's at a family festival - and the old standards about villages in Somerset, country life and scrumpy continue to roll out from the stage. They're about as funny as a death at a child's funeral, but everyone seems to be having a good time, regardless.

The question "Are there any cider drinkers in the house?" is met with approval and they follow one of their best-known anthems with their cover of the Kaiser Chiefs' 'Ruby' from their latest album - 'A Load of Bullocks'. Get this, they've changed the chorus to "ooh arr, ooh arr, ooh arr". Ho ho.

At the end of a throbbing Europop version of 'Combine Harvester' the rotund West Country singer whips off his shirt to wobble his cider belly in time to the music before dropping his trousers, too, to reveal a black thong. Lovely stuff.

Former KLF frontman and self-confessed noise terrorist Bill Drummond is on a mission to break down the barriers between performer and listener. He has been travelling the world since 2003, gathering material and producing scores created using the voices of you - the listener, sometimes in small numbers, sometimes in thousands, under the monika The 17 - he doesn't know why.

Drummond, who once burned a million pounds and was responsible for the revolutionary manifesto on pop music The Manual, has brought this brave new step forwards in the evolution of music to Camp Bestival. He has been busily gathering samples over the weekend - tonight's performance is called Nightclubbing - the stage is set and we're about to witness a groundbreaking occasion. Yet, no one seems to notice.

With a large crowd gathered for the scheduled 10-minute slot, prior to Friendly Fires' headline performance, Nightclubbing is over before it's even fully clear that it has started. With the stage empty other than for an lcd screen reading 'The 17', a dense, choral dirge drones out of the speakers for a few minutes, then stops droning out of the speakers and it appears that that is that. Sometimes, you can be too clever.

Friendly Fires arrive shrouded in smoke, red lighting and strobes as sky lanterns float their way off to set fire to a nearby corn field. They open with 'Lovesick' before 'Jump In The Pool' sees a few thousand youngsters, who have waited patiently through three days packed with middle-aged favourites, seize their moment. Singer Ed Macfarlane holds an arm high above his head and pumps his fist throughout the chorus and the front 30 rows become a dancing, sweaty mass.

'Skeleton Boy' is swathed in lashings of luscious delay and punctuated with rat-a-tat snare drumming, with a chorus that becomes truly celebratory. The glam, new romantic 'In The Hospital' builds on the 80s foundations laid by The Human League earlier in the evening, while 'Kiss Of Life' is filled with Klaxons-like falsettos and urgent, fizzing electronic sounds.

They slip in a couple of new songs before the cowbell-punctuated 'Paris' works its way to a drawn-out ending as the last swathes of atmospheric synth chords are accompanied by more smoke, halogen lights and a big reception for a band who deserved their chance at a headline slot. They finish with 'Ex Lover', before making way for a huge firework display, launched from the top of Lulworth Castle.

Camp Bestival 2010 has been a well-organised kids' paradise of a festival with a wealth of music, theatre, arts and crafts and literature put together expertly to stimulate young minds. The level of care taken in every little detail across the site rivals the Greenfields and Park areas at Glastonbury, while the logistics of the festival are run with military precision.

It's a real treasure trove that keeps offering new distractions and things to get involved in away from the main stages, and while it begins to seem like a bit of a hard sell with the level of sponsorship and corporate presence on site, Camp Bestival feels, from start to finish, like a safe and joyous place to be.

around the festival site (finale)

review by: Helen Brown / Gary Walker

photos by: Helen Brown / Gary Walker


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