In this final post on Bestival, we finally get around to addressing the bands that were actually playing. You know, the reason we were there in the first place.

The variety was bewildering, broad and mostly enviable: witness Public Enemy rubbing shoulders with Brian Wilson; DJ Shadow with Boys Noize; awful Adele dubstep remixes with awful Adele Drum ‘n’ Bass remixes.

Out of bloody-mindedness, the following article is presented in a series of notes and bullet points.

THE NEW BANDS:

Yuck proved to be all you’d hope for in a young, new band – bright, noisy, carefree and juggling a …

Since music festivals became part of the summer social scene, and started to get crowbarred into mobile phone companies’ TV ads as part of yeah-we’re-down-with-the-kids campaigns, and become an item to tick off a tedious bucket list, the way they are reviewed has had to change too.

Before, you could get away with simply writing about the bands. The parameters are different now – it’s about the experience, yeah? As such, this article is about the festival itself – reports on the music will arrive tomorrow.

Here’s how to spot a music festival veteran: look at the left …

ANBAD is still enjoying the long, deep sleep that can only be fully appreciated in a normal bed after a few days of camping in a field* at a music festival; thus the written review will follow when consciousness has fully returned.

In the meantime – here’s a picture gallery of things that flashed before our eyes at Bestival when we were aware enough to be holding a shonky camera that could record it. Fair Warning: there are a lot of pictures of the AWESOME LASERS in the Big Top tent.

After being thrilled by such a carefully-chosen slew of …

Gosh, Saturday was a whirlwind – almost literally, as gales whooshed through Bestival, blowing off many a novelty wig from the heads of people who dressed up for the rock star-themed day.

Sadly the wind did not blow over any of the douchebag minority who used the theme as an entirely un-hilarious opportunity to black up.

ANBAD learnt that:

*PJ Harvey has the best dressed band in the world, and was uniformly brilliant.
*Last Month’s Band of the moment, Yuck, are good, although exactly as expected
*Primal Scream’s Screamadelica works OK live.
*Primal Scream’s LASERS were the best so far …

Well, Friday at Bestival was fun. Highlights include:

*the LASERS at Boys Noize 3am show
*the amazing sound on the main stage- loud and clear. Whoa.
*The drunk guy who was vomitting and mocking his friends for not being ‘hardcore’ enough.
*The LASERS.

Today, ANBAD will bravely explore the site in daylight and report back promptly.

Also, Coming soon: some very dark photos.

UPDATE: Here’s D/R/U/G/S executing another excellent set, on the Red Bull stage:

…

Well, the time is nigh, and the ANBAD Posse/Crew/Massive* (*delete as appropriate/bearable) are hoppin’ onto the mud-train and are trundling at moderate speed down to Bestival on the Isle Of Wight.

Mud awaits. And rain. This is just  the usual British festival experience, albeit more bearable, because of a terrific Bestival line-up, with Appropriately Big Names like Bjork, The Cure and Public Enemy nestling snugly alongside a glut of delightful new bands, including Friend of ANBAD, the one-man heavy-heavy house-adelica machine, D/R/U/G/S.

You can follow all the muddy fun on ANBAD: we’ll be live-blogging right here (possibly just blurry, mud-smeared photos)…

Alex Webster is nowt but a youngster: one who’s just finished his exams and is probably spending the summer mugging grannies to get money for Miaow Miaow or whatever it is that kids in small towns do for fun these days. 

Anyway, before he went about his crime spree, he was kind enough to jot some words to shine some light on the inner workings of a small-town music scene – namely Dorking in Surrey, UK…

Dorking is a sleepy town nestled in the heart of South-East England and, while placed in the centre of sleepy country living, its proximity to …

Tim Osboune is a journalist who likes going to gigs. A fortunate combination.

When he offered to write for ANBAD, I immediately said ‘Yes!’; when he offered to write the article on Camden’s music scene, I said, ‘Oh, go on then,’ because, even though it’s been discussed before, Tim’s view is very different… 

An (Unpretentious) View From… Camden

Camden Town in London scores highly in the hipster stakes as a small melting pot of fashion and music culture that has bred international superstars like Amy Winehouse. That said, the music scene around Camden is often criticised for its plethora …

Remember Record Store Day? It was only a week ago. Has it changed your shopping habits?

Will you keep buying your exclusive, 1000-only, limited edition, 7″ glitter-flexi-disc vinyls from your local shop now? Or will you continue to order it off the internet like you did before?

Record Store Day enjoyed its highest-ever profile this year. Stories about eager music fans queuing to buy one-off singles featured in the news on non-music radio stations, and every newspaper trundled out someone capable of writing a thousand words on the joys of purchasing a CD without hesitating to think …

No Flash are a band. They’re a band in Manchester, a city full of other bands, gloomy gigs, shifty promoters, and people who like to tell you how all of those things mean much more to them than they do to you.

It can be hard to be heard above the din.

Being in a new band is tough – and that’s partly why bands are bands: you may well be penniless and frustrated, but at least you’re all penniless and frustrated together, right?

I spoke to No Flash, a band who are steadily and determinedly grinding their …