Sunday overview

A fantastic line-up of bands graced the main stage on Sunday, with the sensational Muse headlining above the overly-hyped, but nevertheless brilliant Arctic Monkeys. Today also featured the return of ozzie retro rockers Jet, newly found glam rock icons The Fratellis and local boys The Cribs.

Opening the Radio 1 / NME stage was the first band to be signed to new record label Ark Recordings, 747’s. Soothing unoffensive indie rock is the best way to describe this lot, who originated as buskers from Ireland. ‘Night and day’ and ‘Death of a star’ are the two most memorable tracks, all the material is beautiful and serene, very similar to Captain, but without the synthesisers.

The Maccabees didn’t hold my attention for very long, it’s British art rock guitar pop that occasionally strains to be Arcade Fire but never quite reaches that level of brilliance. Some of the melodies are pleasant in their own right and ‘Happy Faces’ had me tapping my foot along but there were so many brilliant acts on the bill today that The Maccabees couldn’t quite compete. An act maybe suited to a summery outdoor stage perhaps?

Over on the main stage there had been a shock addition to the line-up and Led Zeppelin had reformed for a special one off show. It was incredible, the long drawn out guitar solos, the big hair, the giant riffs, they were all there. Alright it wasn’t actually Led Zep but it may as well have been. There’s not really much separating Wolfmother from the rock legends and even their single ‘Mother’ just reeks of 60’s rock nostalgia. And it’s absolutely fantastic- but it’s not cool, it’s not even retro cool – hell it’s what the emo kids parents are listening to – its definitely not cool! Quickly, get it off before emo is no more and we discover really brilliant guitar driven rock music. And we don’t want that do we?

Following on from the excellent Wolfmother were local boys The Cribs. I have never seen so many crowd surfers in one set in my whole life. I can’t help but feel sorry for those in the front row who were having their heads constantly battered by flying bodies as The Cribs blew away the main stage crowd. On the strength of this performance they could have headlined. The pub friendly chants of "Someones got their eye on you now don’t you know...Oh oh Oh oh" rang out around the arena as more and more surfers piled over the crowd barrier and caused an uncontrollable ruckus for security. The party atmosphere was in full swing and it just took ‘Hey Scenesters’ to bring that up a further gear. After seeing the band perform at T in the Park I had left a little downhearted, but watching them perform at Leeds was awesome. They left stage about half an hour too early in my eyes after thanking the crowd for coming along to the ‘Wakefield Music Festival 2006’, and for 45 minutes that’s exactly what it was!

There were some other great performances on the main stage throughout the course of the day, including great sets from The Futureheads and Dirty Pretty Things, and a surprisingly entertaining set from The Streets. After last year’s dire V performance I really wasn’t expecting much from Mike Skinner but I was pleasantly surprised – great stuff!

Feeder were once again doing that predictably bland thing they have got into a habit of doing, the best part of their set being the inclusion of the ACDC Back in Black intro which then predictably lead to closer ‘Just a Day’.

With the release of their ‘Singles’ album a walkthrough of greatest hits was to be expected. Unfortunately this just lead to a dreary Feeder by numbers collection of songs that just seemed flat, dated and uninteresting. Even the opening power chords of Buck Rogers couldn't evoke much of a feeling of classic Feeder at their best.

Set favourites like ‘Emily’ and the incredible ‘Descend’ had been shunted, as had Feeder’s festival song ‘High’. The true greatest hits of Feeder’s back catalogue seem to have been lost in a void of unimportance. Still we have the characterless trite that is ‘Pushing the Senses’ to kick off proceedings and also have to endure ‘Feeling a moment’. Things pick up a bit with ‘Insomnia’ and ‘Lost and Found’ but it’s a far cry from Feeders hay day. Still the best bands were yet to come...

The Lord of the Monkeys were returning for their second year in succession, this year having bumped the fat hobbit (their bass player) and ascending to the dizzying heights of the Leeds Festival main stage. Just goes to show that quite a lot can happen in just one year.

The absence of Andy Nicholson from The Arctic Monkeys line-up wasn’t particularly noticeable and new bassist Nick O’Malley seemed to have filled Nicholson’s shoes amicably, obviously the US tour had helped him properly adjust to monkey life. Originally it was thought Nicholson was just suffering from exhaustion, these days that means he’s probably having a sing-a-long round the Priory campfire with Pete, Justin and Tom.

Arrogant, confident or just defiant – whatever you want to call it launching into ‘Bet you look good on the dance floor’, their first hit, was a brave move by all accounts but it did the trick of grabbing the crowds attention from the outset. Enthusiastic moshing and united sing-a-longs followed as The Arctic Monkeys proved what is currently keeping them top of the nations cool pile.

I tore myself away from what was shaping up to be an awesome set, played with an air of confidence, style and audacity that far outweighs their youthful years. I missed the opportunity to see them perform ‘When the sun goes down’, but managed to catch latest single ‘Leave before the lights come on’, the first outing from the band not to grab the top spot in the charts, but after their performance at Leeds this year I can hardly see this as an indication of their outstanding dominance beginning to wane.

I headed over to the Carling tent for a slab of 70’s influenced Glam-Rock from the stylish Fratellis. Again I didn’t stick around for long, the prospect of Muse live seeming too exciting to miss. Truth be told The Fratellis were nothing new and I was a little disappointed after the first few songs. Great radio friendly tunes aplenty and certainly a party band but there was just too many similarities to T-Rex to really make me feel this band has much in the way of originality. Having said that, the awesome ‘Creeping up the backstairs’ may well be one of the quirkiest singles of the last ten years and I think it may well warrant a re-release.

Pushing through the packed Carling Stage and meeting a wall of Arctic Monkey’s fans who had just left the main stage was like running a marathon with Michelle McManus strapped to your back by barbed wire – painful, crushing and you ended up covered in hot sticky human sweat that’s definitely not your own. I was quite relieved to breathe fresh air by the time I had got out of there.

Then a brilliant thing started to happen – it begun to rain. This was good for a variety of reasons. Firstly, some people don’t like the rain and sure enough the main stage crowd was beginning to empty from the back, making it easier for me to get to the front while the less enthusiastic members of the crowd decided that dry Raconteurs are better than a wet Muse. Secondly, Muse performing at Leeds in the rain is rather like Michael Schumacher driving at Hockenheim in the rain, quite simply nothing even gets close! Finally, the other great thing about rain is that teenage arsonists will have their work cut out trying to set fire to toilets and gas canisters if they have to wade through the festival equivalent of The New Orleans floods. For once, bad weather is a blessing.

From the opening bars of ‘Knights of Cydonia’ Muse were proving why they were as Grant Nicholas from Feeder had earlier described them “the best live act in the UK today”. Lead singer Matt Bellamy’s vocals were typically spot on and the energy maintained in the three-piece lead to a jaw dropping spectacle.

Sadly Muse’s new set lists meant that some leave-way had to be made and some of their earlier material was shunted, probably the most obvious omission was ‘Muscle Museum’. However, when new hits like ‘Starlight’ are this captivating then you can understand the sacrifices the group has to make. Also dropped was ‘Sing for Absolution’ and ‘In your world’, but the crowd were treated to ‘Time is running out’, ‘New born’, ‘Bliss’, ‘Hysteria’ and of course ‘Plug in baby’.

Everyone was soaked through to the skin by the point Bellamy announced that the “next song is what rain feels like”, before bursting into a perfect rendition of their 2001 cover of ‘Feeling good’. Which couldn’t be a better way to describe not only Muse in the rain, but the whole weekend. The best Leeds festival I have been to by a long shot, the atmosphere was quite out of this world.

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