Bat For Lashes at Glastonbury 2009. Credit: British Broadcasting Corporation

It’s always the way that, no matter how much rigorous pre-planning and stressing, you will never, ever see the number of bands you intend to at a festival. You may not even see half as many. This year’s Glastonbury, Sound Screen’s very first (well, since we were little Sound Screen babies, but that doesn’t really count), was certainly no exception to the rule.

In fact, the sheer size of the site and number of people on it (which this year ranked at about 200,000) is more overwhelming that anyone that hasn’t been to Glastonbury before could expect. Now picture arriving on this mammoth site – which, it is said, takes three hours to walk from one end to the other – after a night of torrential rain and thunderstorms. Can we say mud yet?

Unfortunately the sticky brown stuff hugely limited what we could watch on Friday (we fell over twice just walking to a burger van. It wasn’t pretty) and we were glued to the main stage simply because it was the easiest to access. This turned out to be both great and sad – we did see some incredible performances, but we also missed The Dead Weather’s not-very-secret secret set over on The Park stage.

Kicking off the weekend with her spine-tingling, high-reaching voice was Regina Spektor, who performed beautifully but, we couldn’t help thinking, might’ve been better placed on another day – the festival-goers were raring to go and impatient for action on Friday, and they didn’t seem to warm to her piano-led pop.

Perhaps they were all waiting for N*E*R*D, who were unfathomably late onstage, even for Pharrell’s notorious ego size. When they did eventually bound on, 20 minutes late, Williams spent the next 15 minutes telling the crowd how wonderful they were before explaining that, for legal reasons, they couldn’t start until they were given the signal. On realising it wasn’t his fault, our annoyance did dissipate, only to reform as the band proceeded through their set. We’re not denying that Pharrell is an incredible musician and MC, but the songs picked were just boring. When they did eventually play ‘Rockstar’, he introduced it by saying the “label� made them play it – doesn’t he appreciate or recognise the few highlights of N*E*R*D’s career?

We took a break during Fleet Foxes, who, we are told, went down like a –insert tired cliché-. Lily Allen was surprisingly not that annoying, and she looked absolutely incredible in a blue-purple jumpsuit that really showed off her newly slimline figure. Of course, she played all her singles.

The Specials – now THERE’S a band to be excited about – we missed last year at Bestival, and the numerous recent Brixton gigs, so you can imagine how utterly joyous we were when we found out they were playing Glastonbury. This band was one of our highlights of the entire thing (of course, we announced this before we even saw anyone else, our heads and hearts were sold). They were ruddy brilliant, the energy through the ska elements of their music filtered through the audience in waves, and people did that awkward-cool sporadic dancing through to the end. Magical.

Karen O's impressive headgear - think she plucked the feathers herself?

Neil Young reminds us of our dads, but the difference is that Young has retained the ability to be effortlessly and unpretentiously cool, whereas our dads perhaps have not. He slowly and deliberately sits down on a stool and, with what looks like a lot of forced motivation, picks up his guitar. Then he opens his mouth and everything that comes out of it for the next hour and a half is mind-blowing. That such an old fogey (forgive us, but he is) can still get so involved in a sound he clearly passionately believes in is inspiring. Loads of early stuff is played plus, of course, ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’. New bands, young bands, lazy bands: take note.

So tired from Friday’s escapades, we took some time out on Saturday to just recuperate (yes, we do regret it now, but at the time Spinal Tap just weren’t that appealing). We did, however, mosey on over to the Shangri La Fields, which Zane Lowe described as “another world�. He wasn’t wrong; the both random and scheduled cabaret, circus, instrumental acts, graffiti artists, tattooists, and jumble sale stalls throughout were so interesting to watch and browse.

Once we got our arses into gear we decided our first act of the day should be – and mainly because we really, really wanted Young to make a reappearance – was Crosby, Stills and Nash on the main stage. We were saddened by the lack of Young, but the set played was still OK (just OK) the songs they picked weren’t all the hits and they didn’t seem to put a huge amount of oompfh behind their set, which we felt was quite necessary if they wanted the filler tracks to ignite the atmosphere rather than just poke at it.

We then headed over to the John Peel tent to watch, or rather, listen to, as it was overflowing, NME-darling Florence and the Machine. Clearly all the solo female artists had a backstage brawl about who would wear the most amazing outfit, and it’s safe to say Florence came close to winning (beaten only by the singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s the following day). She exuded confidence in her moves and sound and easily produced one of the best sets of the weekend. She’s magical and we, finally, understand the hype.

Skipping Kasabian entirely (thank you Florence), we settled on a hill in the far off distance to watch Bruce Springsteen. The Boss was scheduled to play for two and a half hours, which we were very disbelieving of, but he really did it. It’s just a shame he wasn’t that great and played the unpopular tracks for the entire first hour of his set. We went home at midnight. Sorry Brucey.

The sun on Saturday had dried out the site by Sunday morning so we bounded on at midday, settling by the Other Stage for some of the performances we were really most excited about. First up were oddly placed Brand New, an “emo� band from New York. We’ve been huge supporters since the beginning of their slightly dodgy screamo days, so it’s always a delight to see them now, especially when most of their set is usually new material – proving that their forthcoming fourth album may just be the rawest, most beautiful guitar-driven rock you’re going to hear this year.

Following the rock came the indie, and the crowd suddenly swelled to three times its size with the announcement that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs would soon be arriving on stage. Karen O walked deliberately carefully to the centre, unbalanced by her huge headdress that we suspect several rare birds were killed to make. She looked undeniably incredible, bedazzling in a range of beautiful colours and fabrics. The band were good – great, even – and played a range of material from both albums with some new stuff from It’s Blitz! Crowd loved it.

People drifted off when the set ended, which surprised us because Bat For Lashes was next up. We’re big fans of Natasha Khan’s haunting, majestic sound we loved that she really put balls into her performance and played some of our favourite songs from Two Suns (we think it’s the better album of the two). Unfortunately for her, the music fell a little flat on its audience.

We hotfooted it over to the main stage to catch a bit of Madness, an entirely brilliant and hilarious set tail-end. It’s so refreshing that Suggs and co. really don’t take themselves seriously, especially among a line-up of musicians that really are so serious about their “craft”. Everyone gathered at the front, back, sides and middle was boogieing and going mad. It was intense and so much fun.

What's the guitar ever done to you Nick? Credit: British Broadcasting Corporation

Settling on our familiar spot on the hill, we prepared for the eerieness that is Nick Cave (and his Bad Seeds). He just didn’t really translate after the insanity that was Madness and the anticipatory glee building for Blur. We were impatient for the singalongs and with Nick Cave you don’t really get much out of joining him in his pity party.

Let us start the Blur review by confirming what everyone else said. They. Were. Amazing. Bounding through a two hour set jam PACKED with hits (even we, as hardcore fans, didn’t realise they had so many), they moved through their own music in a timeless and classic way – in a way only the members of Blur know how to do.
A special appearance from Phil Daniels for ‘Parklife’ midway through got the crowd roaring, and it seemed after that Albarn’s emotions got the better of him and he tried but failed to explain how grateful he was to be closing such a prestigious event. “I…thanks.,. there’s a lot of people here“. During ‘To The End’, particularly the memorable heart-rendering lyric ‘And it looks like we might’ve made it / Yes it looks like we might’ve made it to the end’, he had a few tears and had to stop to regain composure. It was so beautiful we almost cried ourselves. The reaction to this band, arguably the biggest surviving British pop group, was so electric and magnified by the sheer number of doting bodies willing to throw themselves at and into the music.

Blur – ‘Girls & Boys’ at Glastonbury

Some will probably say that yes, it was a greatest hits performance, but that’s not why this band are here. They’re here to help us remember Brit pop at its best, they’re here to prove to us and themselves that they can still be relevant in a world of synthesized electro mediocrity. Even if you’re not a big Blur fan, you’ll know some songs, you’ll probably secretly like ‘Country House’ and, hopefully, you’ll recognise what a huge contribution these four London geezers have made to British music.

It’s easy to see why people say Glastonbury is the best summer music festival, there’s so much going on that it’s impossible to take a breath. Sometimes that can be overwhelming in a negative way, particularly when the weather is foul, but mostly you just have to be prepared to jump the hell in and hope you make it in one piece on the other side.

By Cathy Reay