Bjork neglects to play her best-known singles on opening day of Pukkelpop

Thursday, August 18th, 2011 was a dark day for Pukkelpop Festival. Five festival-goers tragically lost their lives as violent storms caused staging to collapse. The festival was understandably cancelled and the very future of the festival looked in doubt.

Thankfully, Belgium's second-biggest music festival does return for 2012, and with possibly the most eclectic and intriguing line-up to date. After a draining overnight journey to the small village of Kiewit (40 miles from Brussels), I slept in appallingly before the first day of music- groggily emerging at 1pm for the performance of Brighton-based pop duo, Rizzle Kicks.

It's all thoroughly entertaining, carried off by two men with masses of energy and charisma. The stunning 'Get Down With the Trumpets' finishes off an exhilarating show. I hung around at the main stage to witness the performance of Hip-Hop godfather Snoop Dogg, before he completes his evolution into Snoop Lion (hardly a genetically accurate representation of the Darwinian process but hey, we'll go with it). After missing his apparently-incredible headlining show at Sziget Festival last week, I wasn't willing to pass up the opportunity again. His 2.30pm start time seemed way too early, and, naturally, a gargantuan crowd duly arrived to…err… sweat in the boiling afternoon sun. As for the show itself, well, it's fantastic. It would be easy to be pompous and lament Snoop Dogg's glorification of drug abuse and chauvinism (females are either 'bitches' or 'hoes'), but who cares about all that when you're having this much fun? There are sexy dancers, guys in dog costumes, amiable dancing old men… and some surprisingly catchy tunes. Highlights included an incongruous cover of Katy Perry's 'California Gurls' (he guested on the original), and a brilliant version of House of Pain's 'Jump Around'. An unexpectedly melancholic 'Young, Wild and Free' brought it all to a close. Now let's see if Snoop Lion roars.

Next up were American grunge rockers, Bush. There were some great moments to savour (a delectable cover of The Beatles classic 'Come Together', an anthemic rendition of 'Glycerine') but, like many Americans, they were a little heavy for my taste. Sub-headlining the main stage were Bloc Party, and having heard good things about their live show, I was heavily optimistic. Why on earth do people lie so much? I'm not a massive fan of Bloc Party's clubby brand of indie anyway, and their delivery was so serviceably average that it's hard to pay much attention. A goosebump-inducing 'So Here we Are' was the undoubted highpoint, and while the set reached a decent finale- 'Flux' and 'Helicopter'- I was too jaded to truly get involved. I was expecting better, to be honest. I arrived fashionably late (35 minutes, in case you were wondering) to Hot Chip's performance on the Marquee stage, where the electropop outfit were launching into dancefloor classic 'Over and Over'. That was fantastic, as was 'Ready for the Floor', but everything else seemed to be fairly generic dance jingles.

Back to the main stage for the world's most pretentious female singer (and considering Madonna's presumably still alive, that's quite a feat) Bjork. You might have had some pictures of the concert but Bjork doesn't like anyone taking pictures of her performance. Or recording it. Or, seemingly, enjoying it. Now I, like everyone, have seen the video of the Icelandic songstress flipping out on some hapless Singaporean journalist - and while I hardly approve of her behaviour, if she'd shown a tenth of that feistiness here, her performance might've been a bit less tedious to sit through. While it's impossible to deny the quality of Bjork's delivery (vocally she's superb), the whole thing smacked of someone who loves herself a whole lot more than everyone else does. For reasons best known to herself and her psychiatrist, Bjork neglected to play her best-known singles 'Army of Me' and 'It's Oh so Quiet' - instead opting for a series of forgettable slowies. She's clearly talented (and boy, does she know it), but this wasn't for me. Like getting chicken pox or eating anything cooked by my mother, seeing Bjork live is an experience - but not one I'd necessarily wish to revisit. The day finished with a pleasant performance from Canadian singer-songwriter, Feist. Despite not playing my favourite song '1234' (how could she be so selfish?), this was generally very pleasant. The 36 year-old involved the audience wonderfully, and she has a lovely voice, but this did start to drag. Not a bad end to a fairly mixed day of music.

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