Simply the best... it's Bestival 2007

We get dressed up on the Isle of Wight for Rob da Bank's super festival.

The 7th, 8th and 9th of September saw us all load up with tents, air beds, fancy dress, face paint, sleeping bags and sun cream, and decamp to the Isle of Wight for Bestival - the perfect way to end the festival season.

The atmosphere on the ferry over was definitely anticipating what was to come - everyone excitedly cracking out the wine, swapping Bestival tales, and making last-minute adjustments to their costumes.

The theme this year was 'pirates, kings and queens, witches and wizards'. The annual parade was a real riot - with ships being scuppered, crowns fought over, buccaneering songs sung and spells cast.

This was the best on-theme costume that we saw - an enormous head-mounted pirate puppet. I reckon this took a full year's work in his dad's shed to complete.

Basics' Dave Beer was king for the weekend. Er Dave, you're supposed to slay the dragon, not pose with it...

So there were heaps of kings, queens, wizards and pirates let loose on the island. There were also giant mutant bananas...

Attacking crustaceans...

And the Queen's Guard.

There were acid-casualty lollipop ladies, marshalling the revelers...

And killer bees in killer heels.

There were rock stars trying to gatecrash the backstage area...

Confused aliens trying to gatecrash the sauna...

And the Red Arrows, proving that they weren't exclusive to Global Gathering after all.

Lego Heads!

This is an awesome look - the nu-rave dorothy-smurf. Coming to a dancefloor near you.

And of course, no festival is complete without the classic 'body painted spiderman with a melon on my head' outfit.

Brothers Pear Cider had set up shop - thank goodness. Their 7% festival scrumpy has been the saviour of many a camping crisis. If you've lost all your friends, dropped your mobile down the toilet, run out of money, and not slept for a week, you can rely on pear cider to get you through.

We ran into lots of friendly faces. Johnno and Charlotte from Bugged Out! were relaxing after their respective Erection Section DJ set and Bestival FM show.

Will Saul was celebrating his birthday and DJing in the Rizla tent (which wasn't actually a tent, but a bus and outdoor dancefloor).

The DDD gang were out in force.

And our favourite ever lighting guru, Woody, was feelin' feline.

Chew The Fat's Paul Arnold was having a whale of a time (honest!)

On Saturday, a giant game of scrabble took place in front of the main stage.

This is what happens when good scrabble letters go bad.

The kind Bestival team put on loads of added extras that made the weekend ultra-special - like this unscheduled firework display on Saturday night. Especially good as it stopped an afternoon nap turning into a potentially weekend ruining all-night-sleep. Horay for Bestival! And see you next year.

Published: Thu, 20/09/2007

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