White Air offers a sun filled day of wonderful sports, loads of stuff to try, and kickass music

When I found out I was going to White Air, I was faced with a bit of a conundrum – what, exactly, does one take to a 3-day festival where you a) won't be camping, but b) won't be close enough to home to spend the night there, conveniently picking up any forgotten essentials? I started out with my normal festival gear, minus tent: clothes for all weathers, multiple layers, a blanket for bimbling around at night, trainers, flip flops, wellies and the all important wet wipes. Great. I was fully equipped, but unable to move. Eventually, I settled on a change of clothes, an extra sweater and my camera. It being a cold, grey, London morning however, my choice of attire was rather unsuited to the blazing Brighton sunshine (not that I'm complaining, for a second).

The first thing that struck me as I entered the festival was the huge military presence. Not in a martial-law, zombies-have-taken-over-and-we're-all-going-to-die sense, but in an aren't-we-brilliant, don't-you-want-to-be-a-part-of-us sense. The army, navy, air force and marines all had a large area, with simulated action and real guns. I imagine that to some, the adrenaline rush from this sort of experience is on a par with extreme sports, but I can't say I found it very comfortable.

The ethos of the festival, on the other hand, was great. "We'll show you amazing people who are quite brilliant at all these wonderful sports, there's loads of stuff for you to try out yourself, and by the way, there's some kickass music happening as well." The true beauty of it all is that in order to get to the stage, you have to walk past (read: through) everything else that's going on. By the time I made it to the music, I had entered a competition to win a bike, signed up to learn more about the RNLI, narrowly avoided being run down by a man on a motorised skateboard (with a gun), seen kids performing 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' in the EAGames tent and my pockets were full of Rowntrees and energy shots. That's the kind of festival that I like.

Doll & the Kicks were just getting going as we found the stage, really getting the festival going with their mix of electronic eccentric pop. Lead singer Doll was high-spirited throughout, bouncing around the stage and chatting to the other band members. I'd like to say she whipped the crowd into a frenzy, but seeing as the crowd at this stage consisted of a few students and large numbers of press people, this would be a bit of an overstatement. Nevertheless, she deserved to have done. Even a power failure halfway through their set (almost resulting in an impromptu drum solo) couldn't dampen their spirits, and they rocked 'til the end of their set under the Brighton sun.

As late afternoon set in, I wandered down to the larger of the two ramps to watch the Mountain boarding championships. Mountain boarding is similar to snowboarding, but without the snow. The boards are quite chunky with heavy duty wheels, and bindings to attach your feet to the deck. The displays were impressive, to say the least. I won't pretend to know any of the terms for what they were doing, but there were some genuine heart-in-the-mouth moments – and I only saw one person get concussed.

Back to the stage to watch British Sea Power playing a typically exuberant set to the traditional backdrop of flora. Sadly, none of the crowd were up with BSP lore, and there was a distinct absence of tree-waving from in front of the stage. Nevertheless, they seemed to enjoy themselves and lapped up classics such as 'Remember Me' and 'Carrion'.

They also took the opportunity to showcase some new tunes, which seemed to go down equally well. Lead guitarist Noble got into the spirit of the festival by brandishing a skateboard close to the end of the set, and proceeding to zip around the stage grabbing pieces of the backdrop to assist his progress. A 'back-up' guitarist was brought on for their finishing number, 'Rock In A', to prevent this from affecting the music. The crowd were still lacking a bit of lustre at this stage, but the BSP magic did it's usual and by the end the atmosphere was getting pretty good.

Which was a bit of a shame, actually, as the sound problems that had plagued the stage earlier meant that White Lies started half an hour behind schedule. They came on to a thunderous welcome (I think by that time anyone would have got a cheer) and promised to play their best set ever. And oh boy, did they. They stormed through ferocious up-tempo versions of their hits, pounding out the tunes to some very atmospheric lighting, which was reminiscent of Franz Ferdinand (performing 'Jacqueline'), with a solo white spot on lead singer Harry McVeigh.

Biffy Clyro were also late to the stage, and this time the crowd were not pleased. Nevertheless, they made it on, started playing and everyone went wild. I started out on the edge of the crowd, but was firmly instructed to move further in as a mate caught site of the lighting rigs that had appeared out of nowhere, looking terribly impressive. I tried my best to stay on the edge of the moshpit: 7 people back, over on the left; but somewhere around the third song it all went horribly wrong and I was catapulted into the middle as they pounded through their set. By the time they were dealing with the booing as they announced their last song, I was front and centre, bracing myself on the backs of two men who were themselves getting thrown into the barrier. I was elbowed in the head, head butted in the head, even kicked in the head. Strangely enough, it felt wonderful, although I did learn a very important lesson and next time I will not be wearing white shoes.

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