mad rush to catch the last train back to civilisation late Sunday night.

So, the apologies over with I'll get down to the music. I'd never been to Glasto before but have gone to a few Reading festivals (the place not the activity) and I was struck by two things when THE DARKNESS opened the proceedings, firstly, how many people had actually bothered to get out of bed for the 10 am start, and how nice the crowd were, not only were there few, if any 14 year old boys wearing Linkin' Park or Greenday hoodies, people were actually respecting each others personal space. After getting over this shock I managed to start listening to the band.

The Darkness were one of the shocks of the festival for me. Before going I'd seen them on MTV2 and the like a few times, and while bemused by their "different" style, was rather unimpressed with the actual music. In fact the only reason I went to see them was that A. there was little else to do apart from play wicker chess in east holts ground (and wicker scares me) and B. the guy who I went with had never heard of them before and I wanted to see his face when the appeared. So I was most shocked when I actually started to enjoy watching them, and not just in a post-modern ironic sort of way. Many of you will probably have experienced this feeling, first you start watching Diagnosis, Murder but after a while you start; not just tuning in every day, missing classes/lectures/work but also argue its merits in public to less enlightened folk. The Darkness were fantastic, full of widdley, widdley guitar bits and spandex. All around people were giving bands they were reminded of from Queen and Gn'R to Spinal Tap and Love Fist. The highlights were 'Love on the Rocks, with no Ice' and an audacious cover of 'Street Spirit', managing to squeeze in two guitar solos along the way; while it may not have been quite as good as the real thing the next day, it was a great way to start the festival. In their own words, the Darkness bought us "rock before breakfast" and for that I thank them, it almost excuses them for being from Suffolk, almost.

Next up was HAR MAR SUPERSTAR. Probably the most appropriate band to follow on from what we had just seen. While maybe not quite as good as The Darkness his performance fitted the mood of the crowd well. And as the next band, NADA SURF must have remarked "dancer in little clothing, why didn't we think of that?" If you've seen Har Mar before you know the score, sleazy disco hits, lots of proclamations of greatness and quite a lot nakedness, unfortunately from Har Mar rather than his dancers, well I suppose that depends on your orientation and whether you find the small and chubby attractive. Though this may sound a bit negative it's not: while it may be predictable I don't really like anything too heavy on a sunny morning after having spent 5 hours queuing the night before.

So with our spirits high after a double dose of sleazey rock/pop, we had our first disappointment. It's not that Nada Surf were bad, in fact they were better than I was expecting, but they were forgettable and following the last two acts it felt very much at a lower league; and then it started fucking it down. After about 20 minutes of listening politely while getting more and more wet we decided to make a run for the new bands tent.

Now, I can't really say much about the next band as in the program they were written down as competition winners and I lost my pen at Redhill train station so couldn't make any notes. I also don't remember much about their performance, apart from how wet my top was and how cold it had suddenly gotten. So I'm going to presume they can best be described as forgettable as, well, they were really. Next up were THE BUFFSEEDS. While the main thing I remember about this performance was again how wet and cold I was I actually remember them AND I also remember thinking they were quite good. Sort of JJ72ey but not as good or as whiney.

After this came a band that I will definitely not forget, but unfortunately not for the right reasons. THE FUTUREHEADS were one of the bands I was recommended to go and see. I'm not quite sure what I did to make the person feel that I should be subjected to them, but I apologise profusely. At times they sounded like a group of 17 year olds doing the Cure badly at a karaoke night, At all times they looked like a group of 17 year olds that go to karaoke nights and do covers of the Cure; and I'm pretty sure some of the time they were actually doing bad covers of the Cure. The only thing that kept us in the New Bands tent was the cats and dogs plummeting in great numbers outside. But things picked up soon after, as least for about twenty minutes, MEW came up and did their best not to be wry. Best summed up by the compare "young, Scandinavian and pretentious" you could also add damn good.

But it was all over too soon, as my mate dragged me off to see MOGWAI. Now I've always managed to avoid listening to Mogwai before, never really having been attracted by instrumental bands, I was still interested as I was told they created a "wall" of sound. They left me cold though. For a start it was pretty hard to tell the difference between the songs, there was no between song banter so the set was pretty much just an hour or so of guitar, and also they didn't even seem that loud to me. Maybe I've been to one to many loud gigs at small venues and have lost some of my hearing, a theory backed up by the way my friend spent most of the journey home complaining about the ringing in his ears, while my hearing was fine, and the fact that I usually have to ask people to repeat what they've said if using multiple polysyllabic words in a short period, but that could equally be down to a rather slow brain. But anyways, I was disappointed.

After that we took a break before heading to the Other stage for ELECTRIC SIX. Many people claimed that they were the best band at the festival, apart from Radiohead that is, but it is also important to note that many people are deeply, deeply stupid. While Dick Valentine may have good stage presence, there was little act apart from the music, save a bloke in a robot suit with a sign telling us when their album is to be released. Now I admit I loved 'Danger, High Voltage' and it has retained its appeal even after seeing it about a thousand times on music TV channels, and it was also fantastic live. But things go down hill dramatically from there, I didn't like 'Gay Bar' recorded and the live performance added nothing to it, though it deserves credit for being requested during Radiohead's set, now that would have been an interesting cover. From 'Gay Bar' things get worse and worse, each song getting less and less funny and ending up being rather bland and puerile. So another disappointment.

Just one more band for Friday, but also the best by quite a long way. BETH ORTON on the One World Stage will be one of the performances I remember into my old age. I was already a big fan but her performance was breathtaking. Though he swears blind some dirt got in his eye I'm sure my mate had a tear in his eye by the end of the set. It's impossible to pick out certain songs that were outstanding as nothing stood out from the rest, they were all equally amazing. In-between songs she tried to entertain the crowd with "jokes", that is in the loosest sense of the word, more the slightly mad rambling you get used to if you hang around with anyone from Norfolk for more than a few minutes. She endeared herself to the crowd and was so good that even if the big R had pulled out the festival would have been worth its £100+ entrance fee.

I'll report on Saturday and Sunday soon, Diagnosis, Murder's starting on Hallmark and there ain't nothing that's gunna stop me from seeing what Doctor Sloan and company are getting up to today.

Review by Christian Madden