As ever, the rain fell heavily on the plain at Worthy Farm for Glastonbury 2009. Over 150,000 revellers endured punishing traffic delays over the weekend to arrive at a familiarly soggy site. The four days of festivus swung between clear skies and torrential rain, but there were enough musical treats to wring out dampened spirits. With a line-up generally agreed to be pretty damn special, here’s what some of the English media outlets picked as highlights and letdowns.

Nostalgia was the consistent theme across the headlining sets. According to the Guardian, Neil Young played a perfectly-pitched festival show. It sounds like he approached it much like Big Day Out – not sparing any hits and culminating in the rocking cover of The Beatles’ A Day In the Life, complete with an assault on his guitar strings. By contrast, his old sparring partners Crosby, Stills and Nash were greeted by a much smaller crowd following Dizzee Rascal’s rabble-rousing set. Bruce Springsteen was all swagger and bombast, while Blur closed the festival with a long and satisfying set-list very similar to their intimate warm-up shows.

Much like MIA a few years back, electro-pop starlet La Roux proved she’ll need a bigger stage next time; commanding an enormous crowd for her set. Similar numbers descended for Supergrass’ surprise set (there were rumours it was going to be Muse), The Specials riling up the mainstage and N.E.R.D.’s last-minute performance, described by The Guardian as “interminable”. We can only imagine the Michael Jackson tributes were ever-present throughout the weekend.

There was plenty of madness happening on the ground as well. As reported by NME, three punters were sent home for the festival after being diagnosed with swine flu. One over-excited fan managed to climb onstage during Jarvis Cocker’s set, taking the microphone to announce: “Without this man, Britpop would have been shit!” We’re sure that’s just scratching the surface of the Glasto debauchery.

Disappointingly for this far-flung colony, BBC’s incredible footage from the festival is not available to stream in Australia. Last year, we wiled away many an hour watching full sets without the threat of a muddy quagmire. A big pity.

FasterLouder will be getting a Glastonbury review from one of our intrepid contributors, so stay tuned!