Camp Bestival - Lulworth Castle, Dorset 30/7-1/8/10 [Part 2]
4/5
By: Tom Hocknell
SATURDAY
It’s hard to be objective about Hurts, as they are everything you want in a synth group, (two sharp men in even sharper suits, great lyrics) and some you didn’t know you wanted (an opera singer), who on ‘Illuminated’ is indulged the first, and last opera vocal solo of the weekend. ‘Wonderful Life’ is despatched early, with a new lingering coda, while ‘Happiness’ swells with such confidence that singer, Theo Hutchcraft, allows the audience to sing every chorus, quite a feat in light of it not having been released yet. They close with the multi-chorused ‘Better Than Love’, while girls and boys swoon alike, albeit for (slightly) different reasons.
Madness are a huge draw, with 2-tone T-shirts seen floating around all day. However, despite an impressive beginning, with their now ancient cover of ‘Madness’ and the wistful ‘My Girl’, they ploughed into songs from the recent album. ‘NW5’ hinted at being catchy, but they lost their apparently effortless pop knack some time ago. Technically they are as on top of their game as ever, but perhaps it is hard to play the same songs for so long without sounding pastiche. There was certainly more focus on their ska/pub rock tendencies, and in the company of so many Dads, making jokes, such as Suggs’ wearing a boa, “’cause it’s Camp Bestival’ elicited the groan it deserved. Unless we fell asleep, there was strangely no ‘It Must Be Love’, nor any appearance of the uplifting ‘Michael Caine’, which may have refreshed the increasingly ponderous set.
Later the Cuban Brothers were as entertaining as ever, throwing down the funk, disco and break dancing, to pull (as they “would very much like to”) Carol Decker (T’Pau) out of retirement, and who gamely allows them to rib her, before she belts out the still-awful ‘China in your Hand’, while they cheekily put subtitles below the video screen for when she sings her lesser known hit ‘Heart and Soul’.
Artists in this article: Hurts, Madness
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