Bestival

Bestival 2015 announce Summer of Love theme

by

“Hear this as the first of the whispers… the festival returns to its roots. A salute to the original muses: Music, Freedom, Peace, Love and Euphoria. In the year 2015, Bestival acknowledges its ancestry with the theme, 'Bestival's Summer of Love'.

“At the zenith of the season, Bestival invites you to join the great revival, lose your inhibitions and join our gathering of the peoples. Reject the hum-drum, the material and the system! Come to the island, and for a weekend, take heart in the art, the ideals and the madness.

“Turn on, tune in, peace out”.

Rob da Bank says: “Our theme for 2015 is the Summer of Love… it’s a simple theme and hopefully one that’s easy to embrace. It's largely a positive reaction to all the bad news and downright evil going on in the world. We're not hiding our heads in the sand and pretending everything’s rosy and laid-back but we can, as a big family of 50,000 people, come together, listen to music, party and spread love, even if it’s just for the weekend. That has always been at the heart of Bestival and its year-round community. Hate out, love in!”

We just couldn’t help ourselves. The unadulterated disco vibes of last year’s spectacular Bestival stirred something deep inside us, reconnected us to our purpose, and stoked the flames of our burning passion; we know now that in essence, we’re here for the love. The love of the music, the love of the adventure, the love of the unexpected, but most of all, it’s the purest love – the love of the party. From the 10th-13th September, we’re taking our Robin Hill adventures on the Isle of Wight back to the one simple thing that started our crazy story – this year it’s all about Bestival’s Summer of Love.

We’re not just talking about bell-bottomed hippies with flowers in their hair, or red-jeaned ravers circumnavigating the M25. It’s deeper and wider, and even longer than that. It’s about positivity, peace & love, and bananas not guns. We want all people, all sexes, all ages, all cultures to come together and to share the good times, to celebrate the simple joy of unity, to feel the unparalleled pleasures of dancing shoulder to shoulder with wonderful strangers and loving every second. We want the greatest party of all time. And we know you do, too.

Bestival break record for world’s largest disco ball

by

It’s been the centrepiece of the Magic Meadow throughout Bestival’s four-day Desert Island Disco jamboree, and now we are utterly ecstatic to declare that our frankly magnificent disco ball has set a new GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS title! Topping the tape at 10.33 metres, the dazzling disco beauty is as high as a three storey building, is covered in 2,500 mirrored tiles that would stretch out for a kilometre if you laid them end to end, and is filled with 350 cubic metres of air; equivalent to one thousand beach balls!

Verified by Mark McKinley from GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS the Disco Ball was measured by surveyor Ollie Salter at midday on Sunday (7th September), before clinching the record when it was raised and spun, with a suitably disco-tastic light show, at the start of Chic featuring Nile Rodgers’ epic finale set on Sunday evening. And now we’re very proud say that Bestival holds the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS title for the Largest Disco Ball.

Rob da Bank said: “We love a challenge at Bestival, so when Nile Rodgers asked us to do something spectacular we knew it had to be beyond amazing. We don’t do things by halves, we get immersive and take them head on, so we’re very proud to have cracked the world record. Our Desert Island Disco has been utterly incredible, and to top it all off with the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS title for the Largest Disco Ball is the best feeling ever!”

Official GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS Adjudicator Mark McKinley said “I’ve had a professional surveyor measure the disco ball, I have verified the measurement and can reveal it is 10.33 metres in diameter.”

Disco legend Nile Rodgers originally laid down the gauntlet and asked Bestival to create the world record breaking disco beauty to accompany his hit-packed and exclusive Desert Island Disco set. Relishing the challenge Josie and Rob da Bank sought to pull together a crack team to build the Disco Ball with cool creatives NEWSUBSTANCE and their top man Mungo at the helm. Aiming to top the previous record of 9.98 metres, Bestival’s creative crew have surpassed themselves and bagged a new GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS title!

Talking directly from Bestival’s Desert Island Disco today our mad scientist from NEWSUBSTANCE Mungo Denisoncommented “It’s taken the team three months of blood, sweat and mirror tiles to design and fabricate this gigantic beast; it’s been a fantastic journey.”

Bestival 2014 – Thursday Thefts

by

Thursday night saw yellow camp beset by a raft of attempted and accomplished theft. Strange men unzipping tents, hiding in porches and slinking around were reported all over before stories of missing wallets, phones and even car keys were reported to security.
Police quickly responded and a mere hour later, the four guilty parties were having their Miranda's read, their tents ransacked and being driven off in the Police golf-buggy of shame. ID cards, bank cards and car keys were found strewn discarded between tents, as the perpetrators were only after cash and phones – which were found in their tent-stash, along with a mighty haul of powder based drugs stored inside deodorant cans. Nice work Bestival cops!
 

Bestival adds BBC Introducing Stage

by

On Saturday, the teenage production duo Bondax headline the stage alongside performances from Karma Kid, Seb Wildblood, Farrow, Night Flowers, Blessa, Joel Culpepper, Phildel and The Gorgeous Chans.

Sunday sees Manchester producer TCTS headline with GhostChant, Mella Dee, TRU Concept, Nai Harvest, Go Swim, Lake Komo, Brooklyn. and Raphaella also appearing on the stage.

These acts join our already gargantuan line-up featuring performances from the likes of Outkast and Chic featuring Nile Rodgers, Beck, Disclosure, Foals, London Grammar plus many more.

This year, BBC Radio 6 Music hosts Bestival’s Big Top which will feature artists including Beck, Jenny Lewis, Caribou and Basement Jaxx. And on the Friday (7-10pm) Tom Ravenscroft will be broadcasting his show from our festival site on the Isle of Wight. His guests include pop experimentalist Tune-Yards, Chicago's finest Ezra Furman, Welsh songstress Cate Le Bon, and electropop queen, Elly Jackson – alias La Roux – ahead of her Big Top performance. He will also be checking out the weird and wonderful entertainment on offer in the peripheries. And Tom Ravenscroft, along with fellow 6 Music presenters Mary Anne Hobbs and Nemome, will be playing DJ sets over the weekend!

Performances from the BBC Introducing Stage at Bestival will be filmed and videos of the performances will be available online on the BBC Introducing website (www.bbc.co.uk/introducing).

With over 250,000 tracks uploaded to the BBC Introducing website and 100,000 artists registered, BBC Introducing provides a network dedicated to supporting the best emerging talent from across the UK and a platform to propel them onto the national stage through Radio 1, 1Xtra, Radio 2, 6 Music and the Asian Network. Big name artists including Florence and The Machine, Jake Bugg, Rizzle Kicks, Wretch 32 and George Ezra all received BBC Introducing support at the start of their careers. The stage at Bestival is part of BBC Introducing’s commitment to offering the best new artists unrivalled opportunities to be seen and heard.

Sigma, Tayo and more set for Temple Island at Bestival 2014

by

The return of the hugely popular Temple Island at this years Bestival will be powered by SBTV and they have an almightly lineup to boot.

Temple Island curator, and director of The Physical Network, Liam Negus-Fancey says “We’re really excited to be back at Bestival with Temple Island after its phenomenal debut last year. The acts reflect our audience, they go above and beyond what others expect, constantly evolving to produce the best environment possible. We’re teaming up with the Bestival creative crew to build a brand new venue to host this exciting pool of fresh, boundary pushing talent to ensure you’re partying late into the night!”

Temple Island host and SBTV founder Jamal Edwards says: “I’m a massive fan of Bestival, it was one of the very first festivals I went to, and the experience was unreal. So partnering up with them this year is an honour for me. I'm a big supporter of the electronic dance scene, so I'm really happy that Bestival has given me an opportunity to put on an area that has got such great names like Kidnap Kid, T Williams, Preditah & many more”.

Out of the traps and ready to spank the dancefloor from the word go, Temple Island goes big from the off with a Thursday night line-up that includes Austrian chart-botherers Klangkarussell, epic house purveyor Kidnap Kid, bass heavy Bristolian Woz, Bestival’s top castaway Rob da Bank going up against Robin Hill regular Tayo for a touch of Purple Rave and the Monkeylove Stunt Team.

Friday’s dancefloor indulgences include jacking action from T Williams, monstrous manoeuvres from Shadow Child, gigantic grimey garage finesse from Preditah, cut-up vocal comforts from Lxury, divine duo Maribou State going b2b with audio-chisellerPedestrian, triple trouble on the double from Spoils And Monkey Wrench and siblings on a mission Star One.

Saturday’s look goes for chart-toppers Sigma dropping the big hitters, garage vibes from Shift K3Y, heavyweight attitude from Ed Solo, genre-mashing deeds from My Nu Leng, rave behaviour from Friend Within, London Grammar’s Dot Major, predestined vibrations from Karma and a live set from sultry soul chanteuse Purple Ferdinand.

And, bringing Temple Island’s second Bestival outing to a triumphant close will be Sunday servings from the Eton Messy crew who are back for another takeover, with their top boys’ own Blonde, fast rising Lancashire duo Bondax, Leeds twosome Wayward, Electric Minds’ skipper Dolan Bergin and Southern Fried’s own Kashii.

Bestival Unveils Boundary Breaking Acts And The Best New Bands

by

This years Bestival unveils breaking new acts and some of the hottest bands around including:

Tune-Yards / Factory Floor / Mnek / Wolf Alice / The Amazing Snakeheads / Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats / The Wytches / MØ / Fat White Family / Say Lou Lou / Glass Animals / John Wizards / Ezra Furman / Joel Compass / Woman’S Hour / Pional / Rosie Lowe / Childhood / Kate Tempest / Jessy Lanza / Melt Yourself Down / The Front Bottoms / Hockeysmith / Wild Smiles / Black Orange Juice / Rag N Bone Man / Vaults / Ftse / Tourist / Sivu / God Damn / Happyness / The Correspondents / Bo Saris / Congopunq / Indiana / The Bulletproof Bomb / FÉ / Cousin Marnie

With a cavalcade of big hitters, including OutKast, Foals, Chic featuring Nile Rodgers, Beck, Busta Rhymes, Candi Staton, Sven Vath, Chase & Status and many more already lined up to take Bestival’s Desert Island Disco to stratospheric new heights, Rob da Bank and the Bestival crew have been beavering away behind the scenes, rooting out gleaming talents to ensure we bring you the freshest acts around. With a long history of championing the next big thing, unearthing the incredible and showcasing the best new sounds, both on his Radio 1 show and at Bestival, these are the cream of the acts getting the man like da Bank all hot under the collar. From boundary pushing mavericks to hip young chaps in this year’s slacks, we’re set to announce a ton of the most exciting bands in the world, who will be dropping in to Robin Hill on the Isle of Wight this September 4-7 to blow you away!

Rob da Bank says: “So in our humble opinion these are the breaking acts of 2014 from the worlds of rock, indie, electronics and pretty much any genre – a delve inside the musical brain of Rob da Bank to find the ones to watch, the ones who'll make records you'll love this summer and the ones who'll make you dance ya socks off in September”. 

With her third album Nikki Nack out this week, we’re pretty darn chuffed to announce Merrill Garbus AKA tUnE-yArDs will be heading across the Solent to bring her uniquely kaleidoscopic collision of aural extremes for your collective listening pleasure. Smashing buckled cheerleader chants into punk riffs with razor-sharp melodies and colossal beats, Merrill, alongside long-time cohort Nate Brenner, is a force of nature when it comes to performing live, so don’t miss out.

Riding a wave of critical acclaim for their eponymous debut album, released late last year, we’re very pleased to say that Factory Floor will return to Robin Hill with an all out assault of mind-melting sequences, crashing rhythms and twisted vocals, plus there will be sets from Grammy nominated singer-songwriter and sometime Rudimental collaborator MNEK, deliriously unabashed indie-noise merchants Wolf Alice, exhilarating Glasgow trio The Amazing Snakeheads, critically acclaimed psychedelic doom purveyors Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, apocalyptic surf rockers The Wytches, Danish electropop chanteuse Mø, and scuzzy rock n roll six-piece and all-round incendiary live behemoth Fat White Family.

We’re not stopping there though, we’ll have live music from BBC Sound 0f 2014 nominees Say Lou Lou, Paul Epworth protégés Glass Animals, genre-swerving pan-global types John Wizards, gritty rocker Ezra Furman, atmospheric soulster Joel Compass, archetypal indie quartet Woman’s Hour, Spanish vocalist and sometime John Talabot collaborator Pional, twisted R&B nightingale Rosie Lowe and hazy pysch dudes Childhood.

And the new music keeps on coming with appearances from Kate Tempest, Jessy Lanza, Melt Yourself Down, The Front Bottoms, Hockeysmith, Wild Smiles, Black Orange Juice, Rag N Bone Man, Vaults, FTSE, Tourist, Sivu, God Damn, Happyness, The Correspondents, Bo Saris, Congopunq, Indiana, The Bulletproof Bomb, Fé and Cousin Marnie.

There’s still plenty more incredible music, mayhem and madness to announce, so make sure you join us at the Desert Island Disco this September for an escapist weekend of off the chain behaviour!

Reggae Roots stage added to Bestival

by

Featuring Bestival regulars Reggae Roast, Tayo and jim8track as residents throughout the weekend, withReggaerobics every day to awaken your inner lion, the Roots Reggae stage kicks off big on Thursday night with Radio 1’s Toddla T making good with the rockers and heavy beats man Dub Phizix dropping the drum n bass, plus there will be bassline pressure from Prince Fatty and Ashley Beedle on a Yardism tip.

Friday’s soundsystem controllers spreading musical sunshine via the medium of bass include erstwhile Rebel MC,Congo Natty Ft. Congo Dubz & Tenor Fly, original skanking rave dons SL2 and the incomparable Trojan Sound System. Plus there will be outlandish live antics from Uzimon, and sublime versions from Unit 137’s Ghost Writerz.

Nice Up run ting on Saturday, getting scientific with Jus Now’s sub-heavy carribean rhythms, 1Xtra’s Robbo Ranxand his dancehall waist-winders, the legendary Rodney P getting lyrical, bassbin botherer Mr Benn, Nice Up’s ownShepdog, mash-up soundman Jstar, and Dub Mafia’s Eva Lazarus. Plus there will be beat-polymath Wrongtom, up-tempo irieness from Turntable Dubbers, dapper dan Count Skylarkin, and authentic reggae power sound fromWreck It Up Crew.

And the Reggae Roots stage is gonna be large and in charge on Sunday, with the mighty Jah Shaka’s uncompromising high energy riddims capping a day that will see digital don Mad Professor at the controls, a live set from the explosive Natty and Poland’s dancefloor warriors, Dreadsquad supplying the goodness. There will also be live sets from hook-laden, bass heavy beatmiesters Rebel Control, progressive Ska types and Isle of Wight locals The Ohmz, and London based duo Subculture Sage, plus we’ll have an appearance from supreme selector Kaptin Is Dead.

REGGAE ROOTS

RESIDENTS 
REGGAE ROAST / TAYO / JIM8TRACK / DAILY REGGAEROBICS SESSIONS!

THURSDAY 
TODDLA T / DUB PHIZIX / PRINCE FATTY / ASHLEY BEEDLE PRESENTS YARDISM

FRIDAY 
CONGO NATTY FT. CONGO DUBZ & TENOR FLY / SL2 / TROJAN SOUND SYSTEM / UZIMON (LIVE) / GHOST WRITERZ

SATURDAY: NICE UP! PRESENTS 
JUS NOW / ROBBO RANX (1XTRA) / RODNEY P / MR BENN / SHEPDOG / JSTAR / EVA LAZARUS / WRONGTOM / TURNTABLE DUBBERS / COUNT SKYLARKIN / WRECK IT UP CREW /

SUNDAY 
JAH SHAKA / MAD PROFESSOR / NATTY (LIVE) / DREADSQUAD / REBEL CONTROL (LIVE) / THE OHMZ (LIVE) / SUBCULTURE SAGE (LIVE) / KAPTIN IS DEAD

Bestival Red Bull Music Academy lineup announced

by

Taking its place among more than 20 stages in 10 fields of wonderment with mega soundsystems, non-stop parties and 24-hour escapism, Bestival are delighted to announce that Red Bull Music Academy will be returning to Robin Hill once again in 2014 with a mind-blowing new stage featuring a stunning altar dedicated to dance and a winged deity. 

A takeover by Glaswegian electronic music Mafiosi Numbers, who return to Bestival for the fourth time, kicks things off on Thursday, with Jackmaster & Oneman Present Can U Danceshowcasing their four-deck manoeuvres, live sets from Redhino, and Kool Clap and Spencergoing back to back with Optimo.

Commenting on his return to Bestival Jackmaster said: “We've started thinking of Numbers at Bestival as a bit of a tradition within our ranks, as have myself and Oney with our b2b sets at the festival. Heavy looking forward to taking that to the next level with our 4 deck Can U Dance set and also welcoming two of our favourite DJs on the planet!”

Friday sees Harvey’s Discotheque taking charge, channelling the same wide-grinned disco as his sell-out UK comeback gig with RBMA in 2012. Techno DJ du jour Daniel Avery joins in, alongside stalwarts of the sunrise anthem Pachanga Boys, while Eric Duncan brings the party-throwing antics of his NYC outfit Rub N Tug to the fray, and the ever-charismatic Berlinite Hugo Capablanca goes maximal. The Red Bull Music Academy alumni corner is repped by Jolly Mare and Andre Laos, both from the 2013 edition in New York.

Speaking about his Red Bull Music Academy appearance at Bestival, Harvey said: “Having been a regular guest DJ at Rob’s original Sunday Best Party almost 20 years ago, it's a real treat to come full circle and curate my own Discotheque at Josie and Robby's Bestival, and what a theme! “We've put together a really great line-up of DJ's, some you will have heard and others that have blown my socks off when I've seen them DJ on my travels. It's an honour to play with them all for you all. I can't bloomin' wait”.

Saturday’s line-up comes packing some urban heat, headed up by Boy Better Know’s JME,Skepta, and ex-Kiss FM DJ Logan Sama. They’re joined by garage poster boy Preditah with regular collaborator C4, Rinse co-founder and “Godfather of Grime” Slimzee with Riko Dan, and dubstep pioneer and early FWD fave Plastician. Saturday’s special guest comes in the form of garage royalty DJ EZ, while RBMA alumni Elijah and Skilliam go b2b for an alumni hat-trick.

Bringing the weekend to a close, Sunday sees Diplo & friends take the headline slot, with appearances through the night from seasoned beatmaker Kaytranada, enigmatic remix artisteTrippy Turtle, dubstep originator Artwork and sublime selector Martelo. Rounding up Sunday’s roster, 2013 RBMA alumni DJ Slow and Sinjin Hawke weigh in.

Supplementing the music, the stage will be brought to life along a ‘dance temple’ design theme, complete with totem poles and resplendent tribal miscellanea inside and out – a fitting testament to the pantheon of talent on offer. Cranking out sermons of hip-swaying hedonism, the roster brings together acts from across the spectrum, giving Academy alumni the chance to share the bill with legends for a party to end all parties, at our Desert Island Disco.