Yahoo! Music Review

Gig played on 29/06/08

It's Sunday as you sob into a sleeping bag and try to drag your designated driver (last seen licking an inflatable alien in the Stone Circle) out of their neck deep doom hole and off to the car park. Or perhaps you're down the front, strawberry cider in one hand, new best mate on the other, cheering the afternoon sunshine and whoever the latest US buzz band might be. "Kinda damp isn't it?", says White Denim's James Petralli to howls of laughter from Glasto vets basking in the relatively tropical conditions. But whilst his meteorology might be way off there's no faulting his band's tangled future garage, as they casually blend the cerebral with the primal to fascinating effect.

Less successful are Friendly Fires off in the distance on the John Peel stage, a band who seem to exist solely to check indie-dance tick boxes. There's no character or identity to any of their stodgy grooves but at least they harbour a few tunes that just about ignite, like "Paris", which sounds massive despite ragged vocals. Making a better fist of this indie-dance thing in the Dance Village are Midnight Juggernauts. Dismiss this Aussie trio as Cut Copyists at your peril; bags of energy, relentless instrument swapping and a tuneful yet heavy melange of Phoenix and Justice makes their deliriously received set one of the surprise highlights of the weekend.

The Sunday afternoon old gits/heritage artist slot at the Pyramid stage has turned into something of a venerable institution and so it is that Neil Diamond steps up to the plate this year. An old school trooper, he piles on the hits - "Crackling Rosie", "Sweet Caroline" - like a brickie loading his hod carrier. Next on, Goldfrapp blend the bucolic and the outright kinky with skill that verges on the absurd. So much so that Alison Goldfrapp involuntarily bursts out laughing when surrounded by half-naked equine dancers during the bump and grind of "Train" and "Ooh La La" while the more pastoral grooves of "Happiness" are deliciously poignant.

Anton Newcombe of Brian Jonestown Massacre almost certainly doesn't think Glastonbury's as good as it used to be, he's enslaved by the musty rock psychedelia of the '60s and '70s for God's sake. This loose canon gives rambles to rival Amy and proves himself a good student of the genre but leaves little lasting scent. Next up in the Peel tent, a Sunday evening slot was never going to work out for electro nasties Crystal Castles but yet more underwhelming sound doesn't help. Their trebly set is aborted after just 20 minutes and whilst it's unclear why, one can only guess Alice Practice assumed berating security guards and climbing speaker stacks would constitute a show whilst 'the man' had other ideas.

It may be because the old man isn't in the band anymore as an opposing benchmark, but Mystery Jets have shed some exuberance in the wash - perhaps the same one that shrunk their trousers for recent promo shots. But they play a faultless festival set in The Park featuring dead certs like "Alas Agnes", turning attention away from their shortcomings. Laura Marling guests, but it's her own set that enchants. She's the female songwriter under the radar, with greater rapport than Duffy and less baggage than Adele, and her nimble English folk is delightful even with her discerning, mature lyrics lost in the mix.

Spiritualized seem to be locked into a groove that has less to do with their brand of hypnomonotony and more with the fact that Jason Pierce seems incapable of playing anywhere other than the Peel tent. This could easily be 2004, 2202 or any other year that they've occupied this slot but Pierce does add a modicum of surprise by eschwing his standard sedentary pose by playing standing up. Meanwhile, on the Pyramid stage, a sweet, grey-suited old man emerges, clutching a matching trilby to his chest and basking in the adoration of "angels born from the mud". Leonard Cohen was always likely to walk away with Sunday in his breast pocket.

While newer songs and his session band try your patience, that weighty voice flecked with the fragility of his years and those now credibly timeless words are humbly transfixing. A devastating "Hallelujah" and the ensuing reaction is the stuff this festival's legend is chiselled from. It seems each time The National hit these shores they grow in stature, and closing the John Peel stage is no exception. Having evolved slowly away from the melancholic Americana that made their name, at least live, they appear before us a twinkling alt-rock juggernaut. A horn-augmented "Fake Empire" hits new highs for them and us.

Despite closing proceedings, you can't help thinking the heat's been taken off The Verve, with all the Jay-Z hype, a lightweight line-up, the weather, slow ticket sales etc. They turned in a legendary performance here in '95 and were once the UK's biggest band, only to split in bitter acrimony at their peak: this would have been unthinkable two years ago. Amazingly, they swagger onstage like they've never been away, utterly at ease and prove to be total masters of that majestic, widescreen sound that has informed so many Britrock headliners since. All the hits are here, stately in places, driving in others, and as lasers search the sky and 50,000 people on drugs sing along to heartbreak songs about drugs, they're virtually undeniable. Rather like the Glastonbury Festival, it seems.

by James Berry, Jim Brackpool and Julian Marszalek