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Bestival @ Isle of Wight

With 15,000 music fans raving into the early hours in the first weekend of September Bestival was a small but in no way subtle close to the British festival season. The event, which is curated by Radio One’s Rob Da Bank, was blessed with glorious weather which lifted the already blissful mood on site. It has many times been dubbed a ‘mini Glastonbury’ and with the focus being on music and good times rather than brand names and money it’s not difficult to see why. In fact, if the calibre of music wasn’t so high it’d be easy to spend one’s weekend sculpting clay, getting high in hammocks and learning to play the ukelele rather than venturing to the numerous stages.

The Chemical Brothers

With new rave dominating the pages of the NME and the dress sense of every fourteen year old in the country The Chemical Brothers were a reminder of what rave is actually all about. An awesome choice for the first night headliner, They played a mammoth two hour set along with visuals so mesmorising you didn’t have to be intoxicated up to your eyeballs to apprieciate them. Like any mainstage headliner worth their salt they marched out with their hit parade including ‘Galvanize’, ‘Hey Boy, Hey Girl’ and epic opener ‘Block Rockin’ Beats’. Of course with a band like this the crowd is just as important in making the gig, and there were 10,00 people who were more than up for it. From the front to the back the jumping, screaming and dancing was consistantly raucous.

The band will be playing a selection of dates across the UK from December 6th starting in Manchester.

Myspace

 

Robyn

As soon as this Swedish popstarlet took to the Big Top stage you could not help but wonder why Britain doesn’t have pop stars like this. Although she’s just recently experienced chart success here with her number one ‘With Every Heartbeat’ she’s being the Queen of pop in her home country for years (releasing her first song at 12), you may remember 90′s dance hit ‘Show Me Love’ which was top 10 in the U.S. as well as here. Since that she’s remained part of the U.K. scene but only as a cult figure, most notably celebrated for her awesome dance hit ‘Konichiwa Bitches’ which was the highlight of her set at Bestival followed closely by ‘Cobrastlye’. Despite only recently having a number one single the turn out for her set was fairly small but massive cheers were lavished upon the singer when she, in true Bestival style, came on stage in a purple catsuit with a model of Saturn on her head. Her set was bursting with energy, beats and filth and showed Robyn to be the kind of pop star you think Sarah from Girls Aloud is dying to be and, if most of us are honest, everything we think she could be if she ditched the rest and stopped getting smashed.  

Robyn is playing a handful of dates in the U.K. starting in Brighton on October 31st and going to see her is highly recommended.

Myspace

 

Kate Nash

When demos from this young songstress started surfacing earlier this year high hopes were held for Miss Nash who emerged from the same scene as The Maccabees and Jack Penate. Although some simply dubbed her as a Lily Allen clone, closer inspection showed promise of beautifully melodic songs with more emotive lyrics than Allen. Then it all went slightly wrong. After a bidding war she signed to Major lable Fiction who ignored Nash’s breakthrough songs such as ‘Birds’ and ‘The Nicest Thing’ and chose to release the ultra annoying and therefore ultra overplayed ‘Foundations’ which turned Kate Nash into a chart star. Despite all these musical politics and ‘selling out’ business Nash’s live show at Bestival was a complete joy. The sound quality of the main stage was beatifully crisp and so perfectly complimented the piano and acoustic guitar played by Nash. Her backing band, made up of a violinist, drummer and guitarist, were also superb and subtly backed the young star instead overpowering her. Musical Karma also got it’s own back with lemons being launched at the singer during THAT line provoking the response ‘fackin’ ‘ell, I’m gonna get killed’. Well you know what to do next time Kate.

Kate starts her pretty much sold out tour on October 20th in Exeter, Metronomy are supporting-Hooray!

Myspace

Other highlights included Patrick Wolf, Primal Scream, Jack Penate,  Architecture in Helsinki and The Noisettes.

Two Chemical Brothers tracks live from Coachella.

The Chemical Brothers-Block Rockin’ Beats

The Chemical Brothers-Galvanise

Only one Robyn track I’m afraid. If you can, get you ears around ‘Cobrastyle’ aswell.

Robyn-Konichiwa Bitches

One Kate Nash early, live demo and one over produced chart smash.

Kate Nash-The Nicest Thing

Kate Nash-Foundations