Where most music festivals pay lip service to welcoming families, Camp Bestival goes the whole hog. Indeed, the high-summer offshoot of next month's Bestival shindig on the Isle of Wight is so diligently and resourcefully kiddie-focused that last weekend the sprawling grounds of the picturesque Lulworth Castle resembled a giant romper room. So while the main acts were decidedly low-key, you were rarely more than a few minutes from Dick & Dom or Horrible Histories. The biggest crowd of the weekend flocked not to headliners Richard Hawley, the Levellers or Labrinth, but to the Saturday morning appearance of the slapstick children's TV stalwart Mr Tumble.
On the safe assumption that harassed parents tend to have fairly retro music tastes, the bill was dominated by what are euphemistically termed heritage acts. Heaven 17, Nik Kershaw, the Proclaimers, Ash and Kid Creole and the Coconuts turned in polished greatest-hits sets, while Billy Bragg reflected astutely on the wisdom of embracing folk music: "It means that when I'm 70 in 15 years' time, even if I look like Bill Oddie, I'll still be able to play the Cambridge folk festival."
Midnight on Saturday night found the reformed Musical Youth skanking through a surprisingly palatable set of Specials-like ska-blues. The few new artists paled against the more exotic wider attractions. It was difficult to thrill to Gabrielle Aplin's anaemic soft rock when you could be immersed in the eager anarchy of kids' lindy-hop lessons, see the Polyphonic Spree camp it up through the Rocky Horror Picture Show songbook, or vote in a bandstand-based Folk Idol contest as local wags Skimmity Hitchers crooned Chard Remains and Viva Lyme Regis.
Of the headliners, Hawley's elegiac melancholia was reliably sumptuous, the much-maligned Levellers remain taut and rousingly anthemic, and barbed electro-auteur Labrinth may well become rave-pop's next superstar. The spectacular closing fireworks from the castle turrets sent the pre-teen element of the crowd to bed hyperactive and mildly giddy with delirium.
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