Ah, the wonder of the British summer festival, the camaraderie, the we are in this together spirit, the fact you can do what you want, when you want and of course, great music…and then there was V.

So, after forgetting that we had two bottles of wine with us and us forgetting that the barked question of "DO YOU HAVE ANY GLASS" meant wine bottles (it was late). The two bottles were taken out of the bag during the aggressive bag search we endured to which we were asked, "WHY DID YOU LIE TO ME" and warned that "This is not looking good". It was around this time that we came to the horrible conclusion that a finger probing was looking highly likely, thankfully, this did not transpire.

So after hours of indignation and plenty of rain, the tent was put up and we went around the site for something to do. Stupidly applying the thought that if you are going to a festival such as Glastonbury or Leeds/Reading, there is always something to do or at least some freaks to look at…Nothing. Not even a sound.

Apparently people at V are in bed by 12, so the only people apart from security were us two indignant Northerners complaining and spitting clever dismissive terms such as "this is shit" and "this is bollocks". That gets boring after a while so we admit defeat and retire for the night still calling the event shit and bollocks, and it hadn’t even started.

At V, you are not allowed to enjoy being there unless you are either - in your tent, or in the queue waiting to be allowed in at 12.30. So 12.30 came and so did the disarray, the lack of organisation and endless queues, sometimes for absolutely nothing, the mood lightens up though when we find out The Ordinary Boys have pulled out.

Refusing the kind offer of a V programme in a nice plastic bag for a TENNER, it becomes apparent that without it…you aint seeing who you want to see. None of the areas are marked and there are no set times available apart from inside the TEN POUND program, none of this free Glastonbury newspaper everyday or free neck tagged programs at Reading nonsense for V, oh no! Whilst whinging on (I do mention music soon), I forgot to mention the obligatory only draft beer available being Carling and that if you need to eat at some point of the weekend, you’re not getting much if any change out of a tenner.

So, the bands…

I missed a large chunk of the afternoons events because I stupidly went there without money thinking I’d take a leisurely stroll to one of the surely many cash points they’d have on site. Imagine the anger of finding just three for the whole venue and over 300 people in front of me waiting, after an hour of not moving at all I decided to hotfoot it into town and back so another two hours of the day had gone but as I said….the bands.

Seeing as the majority of people at V think Keanes latest opus is a bit too edgy, seeing the Dead 60’s giving up their white boy punk, funk skank on the main stage is odd, it also doesn’t work. Despite gargantuan basslines they fail to fill up the stage let alone the arena. The Divine Comedy fair better with ‘Generation Sex’ being a highlight as is an abominable comedy cover version of Nelly Furtado’s ‘Maneater’.

By the time the Magic Numbers come on the sun is blazing and I have money on me (woo!). Despite not particularly being a fan, their hazy numbers go down a treat, the new tracks sound like they need loads of work on them as they are nothing more than jams with a chorus chucked into the middle of the track.

Personal highlight for Saturday was Bloc Party who for probably one day only turned into a National treasure. With the sun beating down and a set as tight sounding as they ever have, they are the first band to get the mosh pit stirring, especially when fierce renditions of ‘Banquet’ and ‘Two more years’ are being played.

Kele Okereke now revels in his vocation as front man and even jumps into the pit to sing along during an emotional reading of ‘So here we are’, superior stuff

Whilst Beck almost had the crowd going with classics such as ‘Loser’ and ‘Where its at’, he lost the crowd by playing too mnay tracks from his forthcoming album and 2002s ‘Seachange’, the puppet show which accompanied the set was entertaining enough though.

A year in the life of Editors has changed considerably, playing mid-afternoon to an apathetic audience at last years Glastonbury sinking in mud, they showed potential. Now that potential has turned into bona fide hits, they have a massive turn out. Lead singer Tom Smith is morphing into a horrid mix of Chris Martin and Bono, neither on their own is nice, put them together and you have a mixture of self importance, false ernest and rubbish bounding about the stage and jumping on the drum riser as much as possible, my drunken shouts of rubbish were not appreciated by the singing crowd so I took my annoying behaviour to go and see Radiohead on the main stage.

Trying to get tickets for the short tour by Radiohead this May was a joke, the website announced after two minutes that all tickets had gone, to knobhead ticket touts no doubt so this failiure made their headline set at V even more important to see.

Unfortunatly Thom and co bottled it, it was great to hear all the hits again, kicking off with an electrifying ‘Airbag’, an hypnotic take on ‘The national anthem’ and the ever beautiful ‘No surprises’ but for a band who thrive on going against the grain, the hits set did seem they were conforming slightly. The new songs also failed to excite though, maybe when they are in the public domain they’ll work but playing them to a cold wet V audience who would probably prefer David Gray to headline, they don’t work. ‘Idioteque’ and ‘Paranoid android’ were two of the best festival tracks all weekend but all in all,they could have done so much better.

Chris Todd