There is no doubting that V Festival splits opinions like no other festival, in the same way as Sky does in respect of football, but there were 90,000 revellers at Chelmsford who just had fun in the sun.

Over its seventeen year history V has moved from an indie festival with some ‘chart bands’ to a festival that is dominated by ‘chart bands’,  this is probably why it sells out every year in hours as no other festival caters so blatantly for this audience. Despite that there are enough quality bands on offer which allows those who do not listen to day time Radio 1 or watch X Factor to have a good time.

The weather at this years V was unseasonal, yes it was hot, very hot, but it was evident that some first timers, still though they had to wear wellies! 

The queues for the bars were long, although after seventeen years the organisers had finally realised the benefits of queue management, they were moving, the same could not be said for the tap water where 200 people waiting was not unusual. As the weekend went on the impact of the sun could be seen everywhere, panda eyes, backs with more strap lines than Bruce Forsyth and plastic water bottles everywhere at £2.20 a bottle lots of vendors were happy.

Due to the heat many punters decided to pick a spot and stay there for the day which made navigating around the site easier than usual, but it could take 15 minutes to get from one side of the site to the other. 

Unlike in previous years there was some Friday night live music on offer this year, and so it was off to see a brass band, yes, but no ordinary brass band, this was Riot Jazz.  Riot Jazz are 9 guys from Manchester who are full of energy , a delightful mixture of funk, soul , Hip hop, jazz, and full on brass, a great start to the weekend.

Saturday

So to the music Emile Sande fresh from her exploits at the Opening & Closing Olympics, is ideally suited to the majority of the V audience and she did not disappoint, despite the best efforts of the sound engineers, her set included Read All About It, Next To Me and enjoyable cover of Bob Marley’s classic One Love.

The Ting Tings have been doing the European festival circuit and this was their first appearance in the UK for some time, Salford pop punksters sound seems to have a greater depth energy to their performance. This was evident from the Katie White's opening chords Sound of the Drums to her closing scream of That’s Not My Name.

The contrast between the high energy levels The Ting Tings and the laid back approach of Newton Faulkner, however both managed to get similar responses from the Arena crowd. Newton Faulkner was wonderfully understated, his banter with the audience was light hearted and gave them the option of the covers they wanted to hear. The set included songs from all three of his albums, during both Write it On Your Skin and Gone In The Morning turned into a singing contest and almost resulted in a mosh pit.

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The size of the crowd is smaller than expected for Gossip but that doesn’t stop them putting on a ballsy show. Beth Ditto is both self deprecating when referring to her cellulite, and angry at the discrimination still experienced by the gay and lesbian community in the US. 

On the Main Stage Noel Gallagher appears to be making an apology to the folk of Chelmsford for the spat with his brother which meant that Oasis didn’t make it to V three years ago, as for Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds 50% of the set  is made up of Oasis numbers.  Gallagher is on top form and has the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand, the set is concluded with great renditions of Whatever, Little by Little and Don’t Look Back in Anger.

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The choice of which headliner to see was always going to be a challenge, The Stone Roses, Ed Sheeran or David Guetta. I chose the latter as I have never been a great lover of either the Stone Roses or band reunions in general, as for Ed Sheeran the thought of screaming girls for an hour was more than I could stand, so David Guetta it was.

Let me put my cards on the table, I’m no great lover of DJ’s set’s but its impossible not to be drawn into the euphoria of the moment, within seconds of David Guetta coming on stage there were hundreds of people on shoulders, flares going off in the crowd and everyone thinking they were in a club. There was the usual lasers and pyrotechnics and the crowd seemed to increase as the set went on, by the end of the set I like the majority of people felt exhausted, but I was very happy with my decision.

Sunday

Planning stage times is not an easy job, but I cannot understand why The Stranglers were given a half hour set at 12:15, surely it would have made more sense for them to be undercover in the Arena later in the afternoon. Despite the early start they were true professionals and put on a great set, with Always The Sun, being appropriate for what was going to be another scorcher.

Outside the Glee Comedy Stage there was a long queue for Milton Jones, the reasons for this were twofold, one - he is a very popular comedian, two - it appears impossible for people to watch comedy standing up! The show itself was full of great one liners, but after 45 minutes the jokes were wearing thin and the music stage was too close and made it hard to hear him.

After Milton Jones it was off to the Champagne Garden for a cup of tea, and ay this moment it highlighted the challenge that is the V Festival: One of the Champagne Garden’s attraction is that punters can watch and listen to the main stage acts while drinking champagne in comfort, but in the drive for revenue there is a fairground attraction with Star War music blaring out opposite, having said that Olly Murs was on stage.

Having criticised The Stranglers time slot, having Madness directly followed by Tom Jones was a masterstroke, giving the crowd a two hour sing along.

Madness appears to be everyone’s favourite and bounced on the stage and burst into One Step Beyond, which resulted in a rash of ‘dad dancing’.  Suggs exchanged pleasantries with the photographers after Embarrassment and toyed with the crowd with constant reference to The Spice Girls, thankfully this did not materialise.  Before It Must Be Love Suggs introduced “a bloke who has been stalking them” it was Olly Murs who seemed in awe of the band but had a great time.

Despite being in his sixties Tom Jones was welcomed on stage by screams, he delivered a set of two halves, the first was fairly low key, whereas the second pure Karaoke which started with Delilah and ended with Kiss, after 50 years in the business can still put on a show.

With temperatures in the low thirties, only a band from the New Romantic period would have the courage of their convictions to where both a coat and a jacket, Phil Oakey was that person as The Human League took to The Arena with Seconds.  Human League have stayed faithful to their beliefs over the years mixing, style, synthesizers and no shortage of great songs, the new single Sky was no exception and fitted seamlessly into the set. The climax of the show was both obvious and brilliant as they burst into Don’t You want Me and the evidence from the crowd is one big yes!

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The ultimate 24 hour party people The Happy Mondays showed that they haven’t lost any of their swagger, yes Shaun forgot what the next song was, yes Bez was ……Bez , but the rest of the band were very tight. At no stage did they take the crowd for granted as the delivered a great albeit short set.

Sunday nights headliner in the Arena was Nero who literally blasted their tracks with probably the loudest set of the weekend. The crowd were clearly hungry for some Dubstep and D&B, and boy did they get it, together with great visuals and laser show. They performed all their best known tracks but the tent erupted when on the opening notes of Crush with throngs of people running into an already crowded tent.

This was an ideal way to end what had been one of the best V Festivals for years.