A Brief History of Bestival with Rob da Bank

Photo: Rob da Bank and Nile Rodgers at Bestival

Possibly one of the busiest men in the festival business today - Rob da Bank curates not only Isle of Wight's Bestival on September 10th - 13th, but recently launched its Canadian counterpart in Toronto last month to rave reviews.

There's also Camp Bestival which lands in July, a more child friendly version of the Bestival experience that is perhaps the finest family festival operating in the country today - how he manages to pull off three hugely adored festivals in one year, we're not quite sure. 

Ahead of Bestival's return in a couple of months (relive last year's highlights above), we managed to get on the blower to Rob, who was waiting in an airport departure lounge at the time, to talk through five of his favourite Bestival moments from the past eleven years. The answers got us seriously hyped for this year.

If you've not been to Bestival before, check out our Virgin's Guide to find out all you need to prepare yourself for the three days of festival bliss at Robin Hill.

Bestival number one

I'll start at the beginning which was basically Bestival number one. The moment that stood out to me was probably standing on the main stage as Basement Jaxx came on, and looking out to what I thought was an absolutely mammoth crowd of about 4,000 people [laughs], it felt like we'd really achieved something.

We'd only just thought about running a festival about six months before that, so to be stood on the stage watching Basement Jaxx who were already huge at the time... I remember standing there on the side of the stage and looking out and thinking, 'Yeah, we've done it!'

Amy Winehouse

It was right at the peak of her, well 'troubles' if you will. She was in the papers every day and nobody knew if she was going to turn up or not. My mate Keith was driving her at the time and she was definitely having fun on the island that weekend [laughs] - so yeah we didn't know if she was going to make it!

I was warming up for her on the main stage, I was DJing and the crowd were getting really restless, there was booing going on and stuff, it was just so tense! I remember turning round to my manager and said 'I've just played my last record, is she about to come on?' He went 'No, no, she's only just left the hotel, she's 45 minutes away'. So I was like, 'Oh fuck!'`

I had to play another 45 minutes - the crowd were very agitated. But she came on, I think the theme must have been nautical because she was all dressed up in a sailor's outfit. It wasn't the most amazing headline show ever, but you know she did nail it, and I was really chuffed that we got to see her perform at Bestival - she was a total legend. It was a bitter-sweet headliner for sure but a good one all the same.

Opening the Port Stage

We've probably had it for a couple of years now - 2013 it must have been when we launched it. It's basically a great big 60 foot ship that we built from scratch, but everyone that plays on it and sees it thinks that its an actual real ship that we've craned in somehow [laughs].

There's a great timelapse video on YouTube of it being built from scaffold poles and some wood (watch that above) and then three days later there's this large ship - it's so bloody well built form these guys in Oxford. We'd sort of gone on about this new stage we were going to unveil and then I played the opening party of the stage on the Friday that year - it was just so exciting to see people streaming in the field and just their eyes goggling at how cool it looked.

Then when the sun went down and all the lasers and smoke came on... I'd say it was one of our proudest moments at Bestival, and there's definitely another year or two in it - I think it's one of the best stages in the country for DJs.

The World's Largest Mirrorball

Following on the building theme, we had the world's biggest mirrorball last year [laughs]. We had this idea because it was a disco kind of theme and Nile Rodgers and Chic were headlining the Sunday and we thought, how can we kind of create something magical for that night?

And so we came up with the idea of the world's biggest mirrorball - it was this huge operation, it took months to even find someone who could work out how to make it. In the end it was actually inflatable, it doesn't look it, it's totally solid, but it is giant - it's 10 metres in circumference, which might not seem too big but when you get up to it you realise its at least five people high, so it's really huge!

So we unveiled it and then on the Sunday night the Guinness World Records guys stood on the stage with me and Nile and gave us the thumbs up, that we'd broken the record for the world's biggest mirrorball! It was a jokey kind of thing but actually it was quite tense becuase we really did want to break the record and we wanted to own the world's biggest mirrorball, and now we do!

Beastie Boys

For the last one, I'm going to say Beastie Boys, which I think was back in about 2007. They did a double show which we've not had before, or since - they did a greatest hits show and they wanted to do an instrumental show was well - they did the greatest hits on Saturday then the instrumental on the Sunday.

I mean, they were just the most charming guys - some headliners turn up and lock themselves away and sort of do their show and disappear which is totally fine of course! That's what they're there for. But the guys were driving around the site, they were wearing the Bestival cardigans we gave them for the whole time they were there.

Their rider was sort of local chutneys and local ales and stuff, they really got into the Isle of Wight, and they played two just incredible shows, basically two massive greatest hits shows that everyone went loopy for. Obviously, it's sad they won't be coming back, so its another one like Amy, it's a moment in time that won't happen again, but yeah, it really sticks in my mind as a great headline act.

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