Part two of Jennifer McKean’s report from Bestival for VB. As we mentioned in part one, music is a very personal and subjective thing and what follows are Jennifer’s own views. Ed
Saturday morning: Grab your water bottles and bean cans and join Mr Motivator on his quest to awaken the living dead.
Hundreds of revellers dragged themselves to the main arena to put bums, legs and nauseous tums through their paces.
Mr M also created the idea of a watershed in the morning, “Now whip the horse!”
He wheezed as a good two thousand galloped on the spot. “Now raise your arms”¦ and take your tops off!” Perhaps GMTV did get raunchy after the school run.
Fancy, fancy, fancy dress
Regardless of line-ups, Saturdays at Bestival are always famous for one thing – Fancy dress.
At no other point in the year will you see David Bowie get dog-piled by Kiss, Mr Blobby, the Nolan sisters and a crayon.
The day featured a Mercury-heavy billing, with the likes of Metronomy, PJ Harvey and Katy B setting various stages alight.
Youngest band of the weekend
But there was a very tiny band – in more than one sense – that gripped a very huge audience.
Stirring a furore of curiosity were”¦ the Fan Jets? Hailing from Bristol, this was the youngest band to be performing all weekend.
Probably not the best idea to look them up in the workplace though, since they just about muster an average age of 13.
One utter tragedy this year was the placement of Ed Sheeran in the medium-sized Psychedelic Worm tent.
If you hadn’t arrived at least an hour early, you’d be joining the rest in holding up the walls of the arena – yes – to catch a glimpse of that infamous ginger mop. Claustrophobia turned the crowd cantankerous.
American folk singer Willy Mason was the real headliner of the night.
As the masses made their pilgrimage to The Cure on the main stage, Mason’s followers gathered around the bandstand to witness a rare UK performance from the Massachusetts man himself.
Calmly opening with ‘Hard Hand to Hold’, the sit-down gig was intimate and the poignant ‘Save Myself’ had the entire audience chanting in hushed chorus.
Tune in tomorrow for the third and final part of Jennifer’s Bestival 2011 experience.
Image: © Ed Sheeran and Metronomy with permission of Bestival: Derek Bremner, Louise Roberts, Andrew Whitton. Willy Mason by Jennifer McKean
