Friday headliner, superstar mixmaster Fatboy Slim ascends the dizzying heights of Bestival’s main stage to the tune of Happy Birthday, for Bestival’s ten year anniversary spectacular. A ram-jam arena and deafening screams confirm that Rob Da Bank has made the right choice booking beat-tastic Norm for the job, as he drops into an aural assault accompanied by an awesome AV, laser and light show.
Remixing summer’s big hit from Daft Punk ‘Get Lucky’ has the crowd grooving along, and a little of Zombie Nation’s ‘Kernkraft 400’ goes down well with the 90’s kids, but it’s Fatboy hit ‘Right Here, Right Now’ that spins the arena into a frenzy of flailing limbs, especially when a host of white beach balls are released onto the dancing masses.
With somewhat disturbing images of Norman’s face in an array of facepaints, the hypnotic ‘Eat Sleep Rave Repeat’ encourages some proper old school rave moves like the sprinkler being busted out, and a quick blast of ‘Simply The Best’, complete with images showing ‘Simply the Bestival’ is met with guttural yells of agreement from the entire arena. Iconic ‘Praise You’ brings out the best of circular congas (if you haven’t seen the video, to be honest, you’ve failed at your generation.) and is accompanied both chorally and by Rob Da Bank himself on piano.
Bursting back on stage wearing a Titanic life vest to fireworks and glitter cannons, Fatboy Slim goes out with a bang, to the tune of anthemic ‘Rockafella Skank’ – and yes, we’re all doing the dance from She’s All That, shame on us.
