Rob Da Bank showed once again that when it comes to organising festival acts, he reigns supreme at thinking outside the box.

While the current 'biggest bands in the world at the moment’ seem to go through Reading, V Festival, T In The Park and even Glastonbury on virtual rotation, headliners of note in Bestival in recent years have been Beastie Boys, Kraftwerk and Massive Attack.  I know they (Bestival) play with slightly different rules to the above and that’s what is so refreshing about it.  He recently said he’d been trying to get Dolly Parton to play!

I get bored looking in the NME and seeing Kings of Leon ,Coldplay, The Editors, Oasis, The Killers, Muse, The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers somewhere on the chart on every line up through the summer.  You look at the Bestival line up and go – Oh that’s a bit different!

Some of the bands mentioned above (well, the last two) are great but they seem to have been doing ‘the festival circuit’ for years.

But I am guessing that Mr Da Bank puts a lot more thought into who he wants than some of the others with a lot more tents to fill.

Going quietly un-noticed he has pulled another out the bag again this year with Public Enemy.  The majors spend the cash on Jayzee while Bestival takes us back to the original gods of rap. 

More power to you Rob.  And if you could find a way to get the Main Stage back to its original place without fear of flooding, that’d be grand.

Posted In Comment, Mar 10 2011. Words - The Ginger