Glastonbury. Field of dreams, field of mud, field of whatever you want.
For five days last week, Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset became the
largest city in the region, swelling to a population topping 170,000.
While a large proportion of that number had come solely for The Killers
and co on the main stages, anyone who knows anything about the world’s most iconic festival would know how much those punters missed out on.

Kicking off as early as Wednesday, early arrivals had the chance to
explore the site and party on long before the main programme began. When the relatively low-key bill got underway on some of the festival’s
smaller stages. Simian Mobile Disco took things up a notch as the clock ticked over from Thursday to Friday, cementing We Are Your Friends as a festival anthem. What makes a festival anthem? Easy. If people are still singing from their tents at four in the morning, you know your job is done.

Opening the massive Pyramid Stage on Friday were Scottish upstarts The View, playing the first of two sets over the weekend. Leaving the best for last, a closing bracket of Same Jeans (“I’ve had the same jeans on for four days now”... ring true?) and Superstar Tradesman helped draw the largest morning crowd of the weekend. Soon after, Modest Mouse fired it up on the Other Stage, with Johnny Marr stealing the show as the (mainly) American indie kings piled through Dashboard and Fire it Up from We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank as well as old favourite Tiny Cities Made of Ashes, crowd pleaser The View and breakthrough hit Float On, which was
enough to stop the rain and send those nasty black clouds back over the hill.

Bright Eyes wasn’t so lucky. Clad entirely in white, Conor Oberst
and his huge backing band did their best to impress the crowds but
suffered as the rain made an unwelcome return. With a set drawn almost entirely from new album Cassadaga and only a handful of tracks from previous releases ( The Calendar Hung Itself, The First Day of My Life ) Bright Eyes could have done a lot more to win the thinning crowd over.

Due to the untimely pullout of MIA (presumably Missing in Action), Lily
Allen made the first surprise appearance of the festival, filling in on
the new Park Stage. But the best was yet to come. Bloc Party graduated to their rightful status of rock superstars with an hour of crowd favourites that made a packed crowd forget about the rising mire. The Fratellis struggled to fill their hour set with material from debut album Costello Music, dragging songs out as long as possible and withpainfully long sessions of banter between tracks.

But while Kasabian and Arctic Monkeys climbed to the top of British rock on the Pyramid Stage, there was only one place to be for the music conoisseur; the Other Stage. With just two albums under their collective belt, Arcade Fire wove together a mesmerising set including Black Mirror, Laika, Power Out and anthemic closer Wake Up. Save for frontman Win Butler’s needless dig at a stagehand, their performance was flawless. But if Arcade Fire were near flawless, Bjork ’s headline set left every last Other Stage punter breathless. Easing into a bracket of simple songs resting on her amazing vocal talents ( All is Full of Love, Venus as a Boy ), the Icelandic songstress took things up a notch as the borderline electronic sounds of her mid-to-late 1990s works created an atmosphere like nothing else in this world. The swelling basslines of Army of Me and Hyperballad stole the show, stealing Arctic Monkeys Friday night crown.

On the Park Stage, Josh Pyke played an early Saturday set almost
entirely drawn from his Memories and Dust album to an almost entirley Australian crowd. Nevertheless, the crowd left with smiles on their faces in spite of the torrential rain. Over on the Other Stage, CSS and Klaxons whipped the crowd up into a new-rave frenzy, before Babyshambles frontman Pete Doherty was joined by girlfriend Kate Moss on stage for a set of tracks that included hit Albion and Libertines anthem Time for Heroes. Just two hours earlier, former Libertines bandmates Carl Barat and Gary Powell played with Dirty Pretty Things on the Pyramid. Cue the reunion rumours. Sadly, none of the major rumours (The Libertines, REM, Noel
Gallagher) eventuated. But there were a few surprises in store. Madness played a hit-heavy set in the Lost Vagueness ballroom ( House of Fun, Baggy Trousers, Our House) before lead singer Suggs led the 30,000-strong LV crowd through a (successful) attempt to smash a world record with ‘the big kiss’ (thanks, Sarah from Brighton). As the lovestruck crowd revelled, Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim made his second appearance, playing a rousing set to a crowd packed in like sardines.

Earlier, festival virgins Mr Hudson and the Library played a smooth and soothing set on the Jazz World stage; one of a staggering six
performances across the weekend. Maximo Park and Editors made themselves at home on the Other Stage, while back at the Pyramid, The Killers struggled to get their extravagant rock show out to roughly 100,000 fans that packed the massive field. Iggy and the Stooges, Other Stage headliners, ditched most of the material from their lacklustre The Weirdness album to play a greatest hits set. The highlight? You guessed it: a hundred or so enthusiastic fans invited to the stage with The Original Punk during No Fun.

After all the happenings on Saturday night, Sunday’s programme began
disturbingly early. On the Other Stage, Cold War Kids made their mark
with an impressive array of tracks from Robbers and Cowards before what seemed like the entire festival squeezed into The Park for the rumoured Pete & Carl reunion. While those fans watched in
dismay as Pete played an acoustic set by himself, the action was all at
the Pyramid Stage, with Dame Shirley Bassey wowing the weekend’s largest crowd with a cross-section of her career, peaking with Diamonds are Forever (which had been covered earlier by Friday night headliners Arctic Monkeys). This was all a shame for The Rakes. Their performance, drawing heavily from new album Ten New Messages went off like a rocket, but sadly to a relatively sparse crowd. After one Welsh icon left the Pyramid Stage, another made their triumphant comeback after slots in 1994, 1999 and 2003. Manic
Street Preachers, favourites in Pilton, brought the house down with
their hour-long set, combining hits past and present for the masses.
Vocalist James Dean Bradfield introduced The Cardigans’ Nina Persson for a tearjerking duet of Your Love Alone is Not Enough, before dedicating Motown Junk to former guitarist Richey Edwards, who disappeared shortly after their 1994 festival debut.

Back up at The Park, the BBC Introcuding Stage was the place to be for
emerging new talent, giving some of Britain’s hottest new talent the
chance to play the legendary mudfest. Doll and the Kicks outshone the others, with a set of danceable indie rock tracks that sit nicely
between the likes of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Rapture. Their all-too-brief set edged from the more frenetic tracks built over their strong rhythm section to the more vocally-driven Kate Bush-esque tracks but the best moments were when the two sides of the band came together during the last couple of numbers. Throwing countless shirts out to the crowd that squeezed under the undercover area to avoid the rain, the-four-guys-and-a-girl genuinely relished a festival experience they’ll be hoping to reprise in coming years.

Flying the flag for Australia were Pendulum, who packed the East Dance Tent almost an hour before they began. Though hits from Hold Your Colour went down a treat, it was a raucous cover of The Prodigy’s Voodoo People that came closest to lifting the roof off the vile collection of mud, body odour and a very large pharmacy’s worth of illegal substances. As Perth’s finest export finished their set, The Who came alive on the Pyramid for a dramatic finale to a mammoth weekend’s entertainment. Hit after hit, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey showed that age was no problem for the Mod gods. The impressive triple of Who Are You?, Behind Blue Eyes and Baba O’Reilly accompanied blitzkreig-style spotlights around the site, while the late inclusions of Won’t Get Fooled Again, The Kids Are Alright and My Generation showed just how many generation gaps this band has managed to bridge. As the 170,000 scrape the mud from their boots, every one of them will no doubt be planning their return in June 2008.