Robert De Niro, Andy Warhol and Count Binface are AI’d into life around the superstar DJ, while Bastille collide with Bluey at this (very) broad musical event
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As the ancient stone of Lulworth Castle reverberates to a massed, shrill cry of “BOGIES!”, Camp Bestival smears jam across the chops of the summer once more. It’s the ultimate in family friendly weekenders, with its wooded craft grottoes, its CBeebies meet-and-greets, its vast inflatable assault course and its annual scenes of Tumblemania. Kids can clamber around a range of giant robots, while their grown-ups can try their luck on the Independent Poetry Fruit Machine. Bastille headlining Saturday night? Never fear – there are fieldfuls of smoke bubbles to chase, giant fairy-lit elk to follow around and likely a Dick & Dom Massive Rave going on somewhere out there in this kiddietown dreamland of mayhem, magic and mislaid crocs.
With respect to a bill designed to straddle a broad age-range of interest – Billy Ocean versus Self Esteem on Friday, Bastille featuring special guest Bluey – the main draw of the 2026 edition is Fatboy Slim’s main stage takeover on the Sunday. And if the bill is his curated idea of a good time, he must be a huge fan of Paul McCartney’s legendary “Meat Free Mondays” reggae rap, having booked The Beatles Dub Club (DJ Chris Arnold plus skanking horn section) to play ska and rocksteady versions of “I Feel Fine”, “Lady Madonna” and “Hey Jude”, and then followed them with the new wave reggae-punk of The Beat.
An hour of Balearic sizzle from DJ Fat Tony is an ideal choice of warm-up act, and he nods to the gods by inviting along fellow purveyors of bliss-making sampledelica De La Soul. Reduced to a duo following the loss of Trugoy the Dove in 2023 – but proclaiming three still the magic number during several shout-outs to him – they’re an amenable concoction of smooth, sunny hip-hop and sharp politics, even when, as they claim tonight, DJ Maseo has had such a late night drinking champagne with Busta Rhymes the night before that he’s forgotten how to mix. “Is your computer on drugs?” rapper Posdnuos asks as they give up on a glitching “A Roller Skating Jam Named ‘Saturdays’” and resort to a gig-saving “Me Myself and I”.
There’s some confusion as to why Norman Cook’s headline set – opened, in keeping with the day’s “seaside” fancy dress theme, dressed as a dancing carton of fish and chips – is billed as “Fatboy Slim and Friends”, when not even a bloke in a Bluey suit joins him onstage. Presumably these “friends” are the host of CGI heroes who flash across the screen as he mashes the first teasing snippet of “Praise You” into Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” and “Put Your Hands Up”. Jimi Hendrix, Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, Robert De Niro and Count Binface are all AI’d into motion, and the boy from the cover of his 1998 album *You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby *dances around like a smirking Napoleon Bonaparte. They signify Cook’s DJ ideology of late. Rather than making albums and playing the singles in full on stage, he’s been rocking Vegas, Brazil and the Great Wall of China as a master manipulator, crafting house, rave and big beat tracks out of samples from all corners of modern pop culture into a two-hour mainstream megamix.
Run-DMC’s “It’s Tricky” mates seamlessly with Diana Ross’s “Upside Down”. Karl Hyde’s pounding lyrics to “Born Slippy” are replaced with the vocals from “Mr Brightside”. Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” melts into Moloko’s “Sing It Back”; David Bowie’s “DJ” morphs into Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax”. Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right Place” gets purloined for thumping dance purposes, and even Cook’s own songs fly by in the mix. “Right Here, Right Now” is mashed into Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, while “The Rockafeller Skank” is caught between The Beatles’ “Day Tripper” and The Stones’ “Satisfaction”. A chunk of Cook’s “Kalifornia” gets the crowd high on its chorus of “California is druggy, druggy, druggy” too, despite most of them only boshing away the Calpol all weekend.
Of all of Cook’s own tunes, a disco-fied “Praise You” gets the spotlight moment, complete with an on-screen marriage proposal. But Cook has opted to epitomise the modern streaming mentality of quick-fire familiarity and, judging by all these raving toddlers, it’s a winning formula for all the family.
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