Bestival is, the lead singer of Django Django robustly notes, "the first festival we've played in Britain this year where it isn't pissing down". As is so often the case, the weather seems to have affected the whole tone of the event. The mood in the crowd is one of sunburnt, benign, animal-costumed open-mindedness, which is probably just as well given the eclecticism of the main stage: Adam Ant's set of triple-tested 80s hits is followed in short order by Gallows's raw-throated hardcore punk, the wafty guitar pop of Warpaint and a DJ set from Flux Pavilion of the kind of dubstep that accurately replicates the sensation of a giant robot repeatedly stamping on your head.
The xx draw what's alleged to be the largest crowd in Bestival's history, which seems faintly amazing. Opaque, hushed and introverted, their music isn't really the stuff of air-punching festival anthems. That said, it sounds fantastic drifting across the night air: the trio have somehow cracked the problem of how to communicate a sense of intimacy to the back of a huge crowd. Florence + the Machine go for the opposite approach. Not exactly the most understated performer to start off with, Florence Welch's set involves an orchestra and choir, a cover of Drake's Take Care and a performance of the Calvin Harris house remix of Spectrum.
Born out of a Sunday evening club night in Clapham, Bestival's dancefloor roots show clearly: anyone still standing at 3am gets treated to a live performance by Detroit techno legends Inner City. While Emeli Sandé is on the main stage, performing the kind of pop-soul songs that seem destined for ubiquity among X Factor contestants for the rest of time, the Bollywood tent is rammed, as it has been all afternoon, for a programme of drum'n'bass, dubstep and reggae curated by veteran British reggae DJ David Rodigan. By the time Rodigan himself appears, delivering something between a DJ set and a history lesson – "Back to Jamaica in the 70s! No internet! No mobile phone!" he cries — the atmosphere is one of barely-controlled pandemonium. There's something rather touching about the crowd's response to records made decades before most of them were born.
Elsewhere, Alt-J, who currently find themselves in the curious position of being the bookies' favourites for the Mercury prize before the shortlist has even been announced, play on a tiny outlying stage, with predictable results: latecomers struggle to get in the same postal district as the band. Similarly, Django Django's idiosyncratic, trebly psychedelia packs out their tent – there's the heady, unmistakable sense of a band on the cusp of mainstream success with music that's anything but mainstream.
Saturday brings with it disco. Coming hot on the heels of a Sister Sledge without lead singer Kathy – contrary to what they keep telling us, they patently don't have all their sisters with them – it's not entirely clear what relationship the Earth, Wind & Fire Experience bear to the actual Earth, Wind & Fire, but whoever it is singing has a falsetto you could perform surgery with. Suddenly shunted up the bill thanks to a no-show from rapper Azealia Banks, suffering from a cold and dressed as a cat, Jessie Ware nevertheless exudes a beguiling confidence. Her electronic take on soul could have been made with the express intention of soundtracking a late Indian summer afternoon.
The appeal of Two Door Cinema Club is a little harder to locate – there's a weird disconnect between their amiable but defiantly ordinary alt-rock and the vociferous reaction it gets. Always a variable live act even at their height – especially at their height – New Order start out sounding ragged. Everything suddenly gels, unexpectedly, with a version of Joy Division's Isolation, given a sleek electronic makeover. By the end of their set, even at the back of the crowd, there's a mood of giddy delight: the last party of the summer appears to be going swimmingly.
