I once stood next to Field Music man Peter Brewis as we crossed the road at the traffic lights near Jesmond Metro Station in Newcastle. He is a short man and has a haircut which is never going to be described as fashionable. On and off stage he looks - well - not very cool.

He takes to the stage with brother David and two ancillary members and looks little different as the band skip through a catalogue of six years that culminates in the critically lauded Field Music (Measure) album. A band matured, a band who have had time to create something

Field Music at the Brudenel Social Club in Leeds is a busy night populated by a crowd a good ten years older than last week's North Eastern invasion. There is talk in the air about the achievement that is Field Music (Measure) and how organic the growth that came via two side projects - a School of Language is played tonight - and a spell in hiatus.

Perhaps it is the distinct lack of the kind of cool that record companies are so quick to pick up and drop that has allowed Field Music to craft their indie prog rock narratives. Songs like A House Is Not A Home are long standing in the canon of work and show the promise delivered with the likes of Them That Do Nothing.

At times the evening's fair starts to sound a little too similar - the band are guilty of taking the same tune out a few times as one might suspect from an outfit who have released a double album in these days of downloads - but everything on Seamonsters sounds the same and more than one of people here would sight that as an album of quality.

A thoughtful band given time to grow and bloom, to measure only to themselves.

"Debbie Harry punching 10CC in the face with a knuckle duster that was previously used on Led Zep" is great to read but says nothing. Such is the problem with talking about music. One needs references but references pigeon hole and that is far too restrictive for something as sprawled as tunesmithery.

Little Comets

Nevertheless watching NME's wandering night of bands and see Newcastle four piece Little Comets one is forced to ask if we really need The Geordie Nation playing Graceland. Which is not to say that Little Comets are over reliant on the bunch of World Music clichés which have come to be summed up by the word Graceland in the last few years just that the 1986 album would feature in some musical Venn diagram of their output.

So, I speculate, would many other things. They have the regulation indie influences that come strapped to an electric guitar on purchase for sure - a dash of The Libertines colours everything since - but they add to it is smart pop sensibility constructing nice three minute pop songs in a traditional manner. Perhaps that goes through a prism of a circuit in the North East which is rich with esoteric acts and high on narrative drama.

Joanna is the most obviously comparable tune but it is own way the song plays with those comparisons name checking with a knowingness. Do we need a bunch of Geordies playing Graceland? Certainly we do, especially when thrown into such an interesting mix that produces such an enjoyable broth. They are like Sting being force fed mushy peas by Tony Lacey while Diana Ross plays tennis, or something.

One Night In October lives long in the memory and Little Comets one regards a band worthy your attention I would say, and certainly commanding of mine.

The Chapman Family

Worth someone else's attention are The Chapman Family who strike the right notes for some but not for me. They are a touch on the heavier side although there style varies to a lighter shade at some points during the set. At times drop into a pastiche of Ian Curtis vocals which is a shame. Perhaps they are Joy Division weeping when listening to The Who while queueing for toilet at Guy Garvey's bar. Certainly Guy Garvey's bar's toilets are enough to reduce anyone to tears.

The bassist does mean things to a guitar but the singer should avoid wrapping the mic lead around his neck, it left a curious taste it the mouth. The kids are into them enough for me to say that they are ticking many boxes for many people.

Ticking other boxes are Frankie and the Heartstrings who plough the same furrow as Wild Beasts (...while being licked by Ross from The Futureheads who is drinking Sherry from a bottle he stole from Angela Lansbury) or The Sugars and in the song Hunger they have one of the catchiest things that could buzz into your head. They make a good account of themselves and fill the stage with a confident energy. They have growing to do as a band - perhaps like The Crookes need to they will find they grow away from such obvious rockabilly referencing - but should they expand in the right directions they could be very interesting indeed.

There is no gig of the year though. Maxïmo Park stood out in Leeds as did Morrissey but the year of gigging was too often one of disappointment going to "big gigs" and ending the night feeling like cattle.

So gig of the year - such as it is goes to Goldheart Assembly in Blackburn's Live Lounge and to Swimwear Juniors, The Crookes and The Lazy Darlings in Leeds and to Theoretical Girl in Bradford's 1 in 12 club where small groups or people went to see small groups and it did not cost the Earth and the bands did their stuff with pride.

More power to that collective elbow, more of those gigs in 2010.

Enjoy and thank you, kindly thank you, for reading.

• Dalliance Albums of 2009 - Turn yourself around, make yourself better...
• Dalliance Tracks of 2009 - Are you out of love with me?

In front concentric circles Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs - looking like a Queen Jawa in a hooded robe - spins and bends her vocal to screams of appreciation but I am not amused.

A large eye looks down over the three New Yorkers (and one extra) and the assembled in front of them but I am far from entertained.

The band could be brilliant - certainly they seem to be entertaining from the screen of one of the many cameras held up which provides a snatched view of the stage - but there is something between me and them. Some barrier to my enjoyment.

It is two cussing huge men standing annoyingly ahead of me. I'm pushing six foot three and two cussing tall people are ahead of me.

I try shuffle left or right to get a better view but my feet are welded to the floor. I hear over the sound of Maps my own foot pulling away from a sticky floor as I move trying to get a view. A plastic glass arcs from the upper tier of the venue, the fourth I have counted as I begin to fume. I get an enthused text from a mate at the front and look it with a jealousness. Why didn't I get in early, I might not be this annoyed.

Bit by bit this situation plays through my mind. A third tall person pushes past - there is a constant stream of people pushing past trying to get a better view only to stop in front of me having found a solid fullness in front - and he stops. For a moment my hands tense up, I realise I'm not going to enjoy this evening.

It plays through my mind and I recall a "disagreement" with a League Two football club (who I am not allowed to mention for legal reasons) about paying £20 to be crammed into a stand by stewards who were more about forcing people into areas than about looking after safety, or experience. That night some of my mates were told that they could not sit down and had to stand in the walkways. £20 to stand in a walkway to watch League Two football. Tonight was £20.

There is no sloped floor though inside this bare, hollow "music processing facility" as there is in the Manchester Apollo and so it is inevitable that some people will get substandard views when events sell out. There is no attempt to manage the flow of the audience around the venue so people try push to the front and stop leading to the constant battle just to stand an see the stage. This is a Leeds thing though, a city where people's level of entitlement ramps to unprecedented levels, and there is no camaraderie.

Neither is there any serious attempt to stop plastic glasses flying around or at least if there is it failed miserably and has done on each of the five times I've been to this venue this year. Is this something that I should just go with as part of the fun of gigging? Some people don't think so.

On the way in one of the doormen/stewards/men in yellow jackets address another calling those coming in to the venue "Puters". Comedians, bookmakers and prostitutes call their customers "puters". Are we a joke, getting ripped off or just being fucked? Perhaps all three.

I can more afford £20 a gig now than I ever have done in my life I'm less inclined to pay it. Yes, I'm getting old although looking around "the kids" are in a minority - perhaps they spend their money more wisely or maybe they just can't afford it - but wanting to be able to have a decent chance of seeing, not getting hit by a flying glass, getting covered in beer, getting push constantly through the night. These are not unreasonable requests. Certainly they are possible at The Apollo, at The Brudenell Social Club, at St George's Hall in Bradford, at Brewery Arts in Kendal, at Town Hall in New York, at Holmfirth Picture House and at none of those places am I asked for so much money for so little service.

I'm not recalling some halcyon days of gigging though - I'm not suggesting that things were better watching The Wedding Present in '88, Happy Mondays in '92, Pulp in '96, The White Stripes in 2000 or The Radio Dept. in '04 or Laura Groves in '08 - nor am I saying that gigs should be staid, lifeless affairs where no contact is made between audience members. This is not about that.

This is about a venue that takes as much as it can from your pocket and offers as little as possible back in return. It is about a venue that once you have had your ticket ripped on the way in could not give a flying cuss about the experience you have.

£20 a person. Is it too much to ask that someone runs a mop over the floor?

On playing Ganglord Steven Morrissey muses to his audience which ages with him and muses "I smell the lowest chart position of my career, unless..."

Hand clenched put pointed upwards his eyes rise and his band of checked shirted boys strike up Cemetery Gates.

He refers to Swindon and the first night of this tour which ended within minutes of the opening refrains of This Charming Man - Morrissey has started The Smiths revival without Johnny Marr and is right to do so arrowing the phrase "Punctured bicycle on a hillside, desolate" across the room he reminds all that while Marr and his union was beautiful no one liked or loathed the definitive band of the eighties because of the noodlings from Marr's guitar.

Morrissey spent an evening in a Wiltshire hospital with breathing difficulties and tonight - four days later - his skin as a waxy, ill look about it in comparison to the gleaming, tanned Steven who returned to his homeland in 2004 with album You Are The Quarry and a set of gigs that saw the man tanned, robust, powerful and epitomised by the snarl of Irish Blood, English Heart which crisply played tonight.

He commands though This Charming Man and races into his newer work setting a tone for the evening in which he enjoys his current album unsettling all with the odd gem of his past. From The Smiths canon emerge unexpectedly Is It Really So Strange?, How Soon Is Now? and - in a seething awe - Nowhere Fast the live performance tonight of does justice to its status as one of the best tracks on the best album by one of the best bands to have made a noise.

Nowhere Fast sits well along Morrissey and his men's blues tinged slap bass current efforts the performance ends with Morrissey at the rear of the dark stage picked out by spotlight in a swirl of haze and bassist Soloman Walker thumping out the end of I'm OK By Myself taking the last bow of the evening, the solid figure of the iconic front man silhouetted behind him before the raucous return and end with First of the Gang to Die.

There is awe, even in the reasonably minded there is awe, but that is not what the evening will be recalled for. Thirty minutes in and the now fifty year old man bombastically treads the stage teasing his devotees with the chance to speak into his microphone. "Do you want to say something?" he asks down to the front row and - as he has many times - bends down to offer and withdraw.

Frozen in time though someone speaks clearly to the singer - to his idol - to this icon and softly he says tells the singer that he is looking well, and that he is sounding good, and that he should - please - look after himself.

The singer moves backwards and his face is near indescribable. His eyes bleed forward tenderly and he might mouth or say "Thank you" because at fifty after a lifetime of leading this near army of devotees and followers though his teasing and tantrums and his affection and rejection Morrissey - for a second - is subject to his supporters.

His eyes show a powerlessness, for a second only, and a dedication as if he could form the words he would thank the world for allowing him his part of it. For a second only and after what would seem to be the scare of his life it seems that Morrissey is the young man again plucked by his bedroom and put on stage simultaneously seeking attention and painfully shy. The boy again, but for a second.

That, as he would sing, is how people grow up.

They pick guitars in garages and start to string a few chords together and then what seems like months later they have gone from nowhere to a level of success and subsequent fame that leaves them out of the stratosphere they by passed so quickly, responsive only - perhaps - to the odd recorded message.

The Answering Machine

At least that is how it seems to be to the casual observer. In truth the level of effort put into the first push of a band is massive and generated on nights like this as Manchester's melodic grunge four piece The Answering Machine play to a healthy crowd in the confined space of Cockpit 3.

Three skinny lads and a lass who looks like Thelma, or was it Velma?, from Scooby Doo they are an unremarkable collective to look at. Strike up the first chords of Lightblubs and they impress immediately.

The pasty singer Martin Colclough ensues the nasal delivery of his home town preceding a cleaner, more measured timbre as he yanks tune after tune out if his well loved guitar.

Songs that plough a furrow of rasping pop played on fuzzed up guitars lacking the twee of The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart or Those Dancing Days but not the energy.

Cliffer and Oh Christina arrive early in the set and set an impressively high bar. You Should've Called shows a depth to their canon while the cover of The Wannadies You + Me Song shows interesting influences.

Before near end song Oklahoma a chance to muse on the band who seem to have had enough about them to impress someone into putting Its Over, Its Over, Its Over onto the soundtrack for Fifa10 and may be about to zoom past playing venues like this small loft in Leeds in double quick time moving up to a place where their rapport with the crowd alone suggests they might go. I do hope so, music needs the more interesting bands in any genre to be the more celebrated.

On top of that The Answering Machine play tunes that burrow into your brain. That, plus the hard work they show, suggest that levels of recognition will not be far away.

A moment: American singer, songwriter and part time member of The Raconteurs Brendan Benson is buzzing through a second cover of the sixty minute set which is the fourth song of a six number encore when I'm taken by a glint from a ring on his left hand that seems as new an addition as the curl headed thin man's smile.

It is a wedding ring and Brendan Benson is happy.

Previously Benson has cut a figure as one of the most miserable men in pop drawing a stark contrast to the up beat Gram Parson heavy Cosmic American Music he has played for four solo albums and two as equal partner to Jack White.

Blazing through songs new and old with something approaching, no, clearly with a smile on his face Benson's merriment continues the contradictions at the heart of his music. He delves into his first album for Sittin' Pretty which is an upbeat number about minor S&M and revisits - albeit in a less obviously introspective way - definitive track Matarie which drops the lengthy description of a lonely night at home but keeps the melodramatic rejection that forms the basis of his songwriting style.

He sings it with a smile though and the glint of ring suggests it is the smile of a man flicking through an old diary with a happy reminisce. "These are the songs of heartbreak I used to know," they seem to say, "but I'm through all that."

A creative singer songwriter with the pop sensibilities if Paul McCartney had an upbringing of The Byrds his next move becomes very interesting indeed.

For now though there are reminiscence rather than urgency and a sense that not all guys who pick up guitars to sing their woes are doomed to unhappy endings.

This is Dalliance's second Maxïmo Park of the year - the first in Leeds having been just after the release of the bands third album Quicken The Heart - and in the months between the two which have seen the band festival playing and touring a set of songs that the North Easteners clearly burst with pride little has changed about the show and the liveliness of it.

There is a few guys adding a brass section to some of the songs and this allows the Pulp-esque Acrobat with its spoken word vocal to be added to the encore but on the whole the set is the same and teething troubles of introducing an audience to new material has been conquered.

It is singer Smith, of course, who maketh the band with his powerful stage presence a mix of sprightly pouncing and the ability to project the more tender moments of his lyrics. That he very probably is the best front man to tread this boards since Morrissey is as much for his bowed headed emotes as the on speaker air punching of Apply Some Pressure.

Questing, Not Coasting is a pinnacle with Smith flicking from desperate lothario to born again romantic adding a baroque performance to the melodrama of the stormy Newcastle night his lyrics paint.

Lyrics which mature with Quicken The Heart which this writer believes will be seen as a superior work to those which proceeded it in the fullness of time nestling alongside the likes of Seamonsters and Black Sheep Boy as definitive third albums. That, for a band for whom live performances of the quality that is seen in The Apollo tonight are the norm, suggests that unlike the peers they so quickly leave behind Maximo Park have the best years ahead of them.

Spikes are always welcome in young bands and Minus Jack are fresh faced and ready to make interesting noises. Having gone some distance in the short career they have to date they played the second stage of Kendal Calling in the summer they are a rare mix of confidence with a youthful naiveté.

Guitars thrashed in pleasing ways later Napoleon III takes to the stage in front of a four track and behind a set of three microphones offering his first missive about how what he does is not his proper job, it just pays the bills to which we assume he means a day job and not playing live.

That said Napoleon III seems perturbed about something - imagine a really grumpy version of The Voluntary Bulter Scheme on a really grumpy day - so perhaps he does find the music a grind. Certainly it is cathartic with him growling at times sinking his songs under layers of noise.

It is well performed with one man making an impressively loud sound and - in a way - crafted. I would never say that Napoleon III was not good but the experience of listening and watching is - to me - repulsive. Napoleon III accurately gets over what is in his head to the audience but I'm not sure I welcome such a vex to my mind.

Lacking spikes and vexment are Just Handshakes (We're British) who are enjoyable but somewhat forgettable. They show the influences routed in Swedish twee pop but lack a modulation in what they do. The first song sounds good, the second like the first and so on.

Theoretical Girl

More individuality can be found in Theoretical Girl who headlines the late running gig with an all too brief run through tracks from her album Divided which playfully narrate the odd tale of unrequited love with the Girl herself Amy switching between keyboard and guitar. There are many women doing singer/songwriter - indeed this site had praised at length Blue Roses and things that Florence's Lungs are worth a listen - and Theoretical Girl sit alongside those being more wry than the one and smarter than the other.

Theoretical Girl convinces with a sturdy performance that lacks any fake self-effacement and flashes with confidence. It seems to be the music of someone playing and singing exactly what she wants, a captivating thing.

Manchester Orchestra

Dananananaykroyd

August Bank Holiday, and once again thousands flock to either Reading or Leeds to wear silly hats for three days of binge drinking, post-apocalyptic camping and occasionally a bit of music too. Here is your whirlwind guide to that latter part, starting with Dananananaykroyd, who are worth the stupid name. They’re gloriously chaotic fun as a live act and wake up the early attendees in the NME tent with their double drummers and tendency to play skipping games with lead wires or attack each other with microphones. Pity Manchester Orchestra can’t really match up, their slightly dull rock thudding on until the much hyped Virgins come onstage. Heard of The Virgins? You know, the oh-so cool New York band who play guitars and sing about girls and stuff? Don’t bother if you haven’t. They’re actually quite ignorable, but let the hipsters have their fun.

The Airborne Toxic Event

The Airborne Toxic Event are more interesting, even though they look a bit like they’ve been constructed from Arcade Fire’s cast off clothes and leftover instruments. They also share a similar taste for expanding pop rock into something a little more grandiose, but not quite epic yet. They do have a sizable cult following, so hopefully its A Sign Of Things To Come. Next Little Boots – seemingly the runner up in the current Pop Female epidemic – sings nice Kylie Minogue type songs that she wrote all by herself on a thing that looks like an etch-a-sketch with little bleeping lights on it (it’s called a Tenori-on, it makes music, it costs £789, I want one).

Funeral For A Friend

Deftones

Fall Out Boy

Now we move to the mainstage, only to find Funeral For A Friend playing stroppy sulky music to stroppy sulky kids – a surprise to those of us who assumed everyone must have grown out of them by now. Deftones provide a similar sort of thing, only louder and a little bit more metally, bless them, until Fall Out Boy arrive. Now, I’m 17. I know far too many people who think Fall Out Boy are the voice of our generation, with a sharp wit and some killer tunes too. I personally think they are shit, and the set they play at Reading seems to satisfy both sides. Kids in Vans shoes and skinny grey hoodies go wild at finally seeing their heroes, while I just feel old. I don’t get this. It’s whiny, dull, and nothing special, ok?

Placebo

Time for something more obscure and credible, so off to the Festival Republic stage to see The Big Pink, who specialise in trippy guitars and cool noises, like My Bloody Valentine with the safety on. It’d be interesting to hear them on record. But then back to main stage for yet more teenage angst from people way past adolescence, as Placebo are providing a slightly older generation with their own whiny songs about girls and boys and painkillers via a grown man in eyeliner. Their set is thick with new material, unwise to play for a festival, and so they fall a little flat.

Friendly Fires

Faith No More

Back to NME to get some colour kicked into the veins, as Friendly Fires prove to be enjoyable, with crowds bouncing around and basslines throbbing, and then Jamie T comes on. Before Faith No More were announced, Jamie T was the Friday headliner for this second largest tent, even though he was the sound of three summers ago and has never really made a lasting impression on the general public, but he turns out to be better than expected – his songs are upbeat and he clearly is more talented than his cheeky busker reputation would allow.

Kings of Leon

Sadly once he finishes, the tent drains as everybody goes to watch Kings of Leon, but as I don’t really want to listen to a band whose biggest hit will be turned into a thrush cream advert one day (you know the song I mean), I stay for Faith No More. Smart plan. Although they are chiefly a heavy rock band often verging on metal, they are smarter than the average band, with a wealth of musical styles at their disposal – as anyone who knows them by that Lionel Ritchie cover should know. So while they open with their melodica-driven version of the theme from Midnight Cowboy, they then blast through a selection of pulsing, adrenalised classics, thus bringing proper rock to the festival on a year where it has been a little light, and still throwing in the Eastenders theme (twice) or a singing lesson when they feel like it. Superb.

Incidentally, Kings of Leon were apparently terrible. It says something that when the thrush cream song gets played over the speakers later in the week, the entire crowd boo so loudly they are forced to change the track before the singing even starts. Oh dear.

Mariachi El Bronx

The Bronx

Fightstar

Saturday brings the sunshine, and Mariachi El Bronx set the mood with some vaguely flamencoey stuff, including the jackets, which does make the whole thing look a bit like a tacky side project (it is. The Bronx proper are playing another stage later). It isn’t bad though. Fightstar arrive, where the one with the eyebrows out of Busted tries to play grown up music, but fails – at least Busted could write a tune, even if they did have lyrics like Year 3000.

The Rakes

Eagles of Death Metal

The Rakes come on, and are an improvement - their catchy indie guitar music is pretty good but they sadly ignore their more complex work like Suspicious Eyes. Eagles of Death Metal prove to be utterly pointless – the singer may as well shouted ‘I’m friends with Josh Homme, y’know’ and walked off. The biggest cheers are when the crowd see Dave Grohl lurking by the sides on the screens.

Them Crooked Vultures

This proves to be the giveaway that the rumoured supergroup Them Crooked Vultures really are the mystery band playing NME later. They feature Dave Grohl, Josh Homme and John Paul Jones – all of whom have been in better bands than Eagles of Death Metal. There is a mass exodus to the tent, but first Patrick Wolf has to play, pretentious idiot. He looks like the opening act on a Spinal Tap gay cabaret tour. It’s possible that he can only fit into those outfits after tearing his own genitals off from the sheer thought of himself. No matter, he preens about the stage, climbing the lighting rigs, singing Madonna covers and other things with bleeps and strings and stuff that probably don’t sound as good as they did in his head. Never mind, because Them Crooked Vultures finally come out to a sea of camera phones and shrieks of ‘OhMyGodIt’sDaveGrohl!’(a living member of Led Zeppelin and the world’s only cool ginger are simply not impressive enough for these people). But the group do impress – these are still three very strong talents – and there will be hundreds of people pretending they came to see them later on.

Ian Brown

Ian Brown proves to be a little saddening. It’s not that the music is bad – the solo stuff is pretty good, if unfamiliar, and the rolling bassline of Fool’s Gold makes the crowd do a ‘wow, a Roses track!’ double take. Sadly, it’s this old classic that highlights how poor his voice has become in the past twenty years. It sounds like a strained man attempting karaoke instead of the smooth whisper-hum of glory days. I’m sure my own inner 15 year old isn’t the only one feeling a little let down.

The Prodigy

But cheer up, because Maxïmo Park are here to grab the attention of a crowd bored with the appearance of just-another-indie-band. Paul Smith gyrates around with his bowler hat, occasionally reading from books on stage. They’re a little more captivating than the Rakes were, anyhow, but this is a trivial comparision when compared to The Prodigy. My god, they’re even raving it up in the gourmet noodle stands. Far from pot bellied embarrassments, they still have the ferocious energy to make everyone from the age of twelve to sixty attempt to kill each other in large, wild circle pits. And if you think the set is crazy, try surviving the rush for water afterwards.

Arctic Monkeys

But now is the time for Arctic Monkeys. It seems like just yesterday they were those lovable northern scallywags, posterboys of the ‘MySpace Revolution’, who sounded like the coolest band in history to have ever played a youth club. But now they’re all grown up, with long hair and albums recorded in deserts, and the transformation really comes through. Allthough Humbug was only released the day most people arrived on site, the songs are well received, with a darker and more complex tone than the earlier hits, though those are of course the ones that get everyone singing along. The exchange of favourites such as Mardy Bum or A Certain Romance for obscure Nick Cave covers and large amounts of new material causes murmurs of agreement when somebody shouts ‘PLAY SOMETHING DECENT, YOU C***S!’, but never mind them. Arctic Monkeys have proven that it is possible to remain both fresh and well loved for years after that initial terrifying rush of hype. Well done.

Broadway Calls

Noah and The Whale

Sunday is grey weather and a bleary-eyed collective hangover. I wander from stage to stage for the first bit, and the ones I stayed for thirty seconds of I’m not going to mention here. Broadway Calls are a bunch of Green Day rip offs – even their posture reminds me of their old videos. Noah and The Whale really surprise me – I couldn’t stand Five Years Time, and thought that the rest of their material would be the same. In fact, their music sounds like pale blue waves crashing on silvery grey pebbles, and as they don’t play any ukulele songs they alienate everyone in the crowd but win me over.

Lethal Bizzle

The Living End

Metronomy

Brand New

Lethal Bizzle’s moron rap keeps the crowds happy, but I instead make a few visits to the alternative tent for some comedy (Andy Robinson is one of those middle aged grumps who actually cross the generation barriers, Daniel Townes has his own obscene brilliance, and Jeremy Hardy should go away back to Radio 4). The Living End I didn’t see a lot of either, not that I seemed to miss much, but Metronomy’s furious maths rock beats make them the most attention grabbing band of the day so far – though Brand New’s use of feedback and guitar noises also prick up the ears.

Vampire Weekend

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Now we reach the Big Bands, the final few acts that everyone has heard of. Vampire Weekend are still cool, bobbing about with their second generation afro beat rhythms, and most of their new material promises much of the same (though there’s none quite like A Punk or Oxford Comma). Yeah Yeah Yeahs are mostly centred around Karen O’s bizarre costume (It’s a parrot! It’s a boiled sweet zebra! It’s a giant beach towel!), but the music itself is worth it. Although their new album drifted more into electro-pop, all aspects of their career are squished together wonderfully in one stomping performance.

Bloc Party

Bloc Party have played roughly this same spot on the Reading/Leeds bill for several years – some wristband-toting veterans are getting a bit sick of them (as are most of the people who ever heard anything off Intimacy, let’s be honest), and while Mercury sounds even worse than it did on record, no one really minds – there are lasers and circle pits and those good old fashioned angular guitars and everybody is happy. Turns out that this is the 10^th anniversary of key band members meeting each other at this very festival, and even though I can barely see the stage, they have got their act together live again with this homecoming, which is reassuring considering what that new single sounds like.

The final – and probably best – band of the weekend is Radiohead. They are unpredictable and surprising – they even start off with Creep – mixing all their styles and eras together. So the set may seem to concentrate on the later, electronic stuff, until you count up and realise they’ve played half of OK Computer (and just when you think they’re never going to play a certain song, they do). Their songs are filled with wonder and power, ever impressive and dazzling. And their stage set looks like they’re playing in the giant CCTV room of a lighting warehouse. There are moments for staring at the stage in awe, followed by songs where the audience all jump and dive at each other, disproving the idea everyone spends Radiohead shows with their arms folded, waiting to be impressed. But then, they are impressive.

Wonderful, exhilarating, beautiful, whatever, finished. The speakers tell everybody we’ll meet again next year, then turf us out into the Millets wilderness of the campsites on Tent Burning Night. This year could easily have fallen flat – a lot of recycled bands from recent years and a huge proportion of recently released material are not a good combination for any festival – but instead some superb headliners, strong supporting acts and nice surprises from the more obscure acts meant that 2009 has not been a weak year at all. Of course there’s been plenty of rubbish too – but half the fun is in mocking them, isn’t it?