Virgin Festival 2004, Hylands Park

When talking about festival atmosphere, people would probably come up with influential factors, such as sex in a tent, beer and mates, but most importantly Rock and Roll. Let's forget about the V festival Corporation Inc. and let's enjoy the experience of 'bumping' into new exciting music and assess once more the fact that the bands you love are still driving you wild.

This year the festival looked much busier compared to the previous years and running to different points of the park to watch the performances reasonably close to the stages has proved more difficult - those who are short like me will understand.

Races towards the beer tents and the stages and height problems apart, V rocked from every corner of Hylands Park.

The Kasabian opened the festival on the NME stage with a mash up of baggy electro/indie-rock tunes which peaked with their top ten hit 'LSF' which brings 'Fools Gold' to a higher and louder level of dance beats and guitar amps.

The person who arranged the line up on the main stage should be arrested. Instead of kicking the festival with a decent rock assault that could bring back to life many hungover souls, Jamie Cullum only managed to lead the festival goers into an afternoon nap with his jazz sound and with a poor ska version of 'Singing in the rain'. The only highlight of his performance was a song on the perception of the joys of student life - not that every student could afford to use the student loan to produce an album...good luck to him for the bravery, though.

Snow Patrol provided the so sought after energy attack, with songs such as 'Tiny Little Fractures' and 'Wow'. It was unfortunate that with such a short slot, they focused on their recent hits, leaving aside great songs from their previous albums, such as 'A night is not enough' and ' Black and blue'. They gave the crowd very uplifting renditions of 'Spitting games' and 'A clock is ticking' to then enter a more emotional level - with 'Chocolate' and 'How to be dead' - which culminated in the anthemic 'Run'.

It must be such a liberating and overwhelming experience having the biggest crowd at the V festival singing unaccompanied to your songs. Gary Lightbody's words 'We will remember this moment for the rest of our lives...You are fucking brilliant!' count more than a thousand adjectives put together to define such a moment.

From Northern Ireland royalty, my attention shifted to the Merseyside quintet performing on the NME Stage, the Zutons. The Zutons, dressed in bright yellow suits, offered a mix of Beatlesque melodies with songs like 'Confusion', 'Railroad' and 'Remember me'. When the latter song started, the crowd could not resist having a bit of a boogie...A true hymn to the good times dancing around in a field on a sunny day. Tunes like ' Pressure Point' and ' Zuton Fever', true statements of escapism from the guitar based sound of Liverpool with hints of soul music and sax, really blew away the audience who provided big cheers. Even now my fingers are tapping...I might have caught the Zutons fever.

Talking of dancing, the Scissor Sisters drew a massive crowd of funk disco lovers cheering and boogying to the sound of their hits 'Take your mama out', Comfortably numb' and 'Laura'. The Scissor Sisters are not just a musical statement on stage with their party attitude and their disco beats, but also a fashion one. Jake Shears' taste might be a bit camp, with his cowboy outfit, but it is certainly eccentric and interesting to look at. Ana Matronics seems to be the funky one out of Sex and the City. Shake it sisters!

The greatest surprise of the V festival was certainly N.E.R.D. Oh boy, rock they do!!! Whoever thought that they were just a hip hop act, think again! Rock guitar, hip hop and dance beats were all mixed together to create an irresistible formula that made the crowd go absolutely rowdy. Pharrel Williams looks like the kind of man with the golden touch who likes to make women feel special. I wondered how many bras were thrown on stage at the sound of 'She wants to move' and 'Lapdance', probably two of the sexiest songs I have ever listened to.

All the good rock lovers waiting for an act of pure rock memorabilia who returned to the music scene with vengeance were rewarded when the Pixies came on stage. They offered the crowd a sequence of pure classics such as 'This monkey has gone to heaven' and 'Here comes your man'. It is strange to see how you can react with such passion to the live versions of songs that were never left out of track lists in clubs when you were a novel music adept trying to catch up with all the indie rock vibes.

After such amazing moments of music perfection, it was time to conclude this festival experience with the same combination of excitement and need to be lost in music which had characterised the day. No room for uber cool bands who wear sunglasses at night. It is time to chill and drown in music. I headed to the New bands stage for The Delays' performance. The band gave the crowd a good selection of their hits from their debut album 'Faded Seaside Glamour', with their 60s guitar sound and a dance element coming from the keyboard and the sampler of Aaron Gilbert. Songs like 'Hey girl', 'Stay where you are' and 'On' got the audience into a dancing chilled mood, aided by the fact that the tent was not entirely filled and left the crowd the space to relax and move around without falling on other people. The peaks of their performance were without doubt their top ten hit 'Nearer than Heaven' and their final song 'Long time coming', the kind of music that accompanies the end of a dream and makes you shift softly back to reality.

I managed to rush back to the NME stage to catch the end of Massive Attack's performance with the truly magnificent 'Unfinished Symphony'. There could not be better soothing moment to conclude this music experience.

The lights faded, the silence fell over Hydlands Park and the unfinished symphony was completed for another year.