V Festival

Well after a few showers and a couple of good nights sleep in a comfy bed, I've just about recovered from this year's V Festival.

But what a weekend!  Some of the biggest names in music graced the stages at Hylands Park in Chelmsford, and they certainly didn't disappoint.  Alanis Morrisette, Girls Aloud, The Stereophonics and The Kaiser Chiefs all put on excellent performances and really got the crowd going.

But as anybody who knows me will tell you, the weekend was only ever going to be about one band, Muse, and they absolutely rocked the show.

Stuart & Sonia prepared for the weather

Their music is so varied and vast that it transcends the festival experience and transports you somewhere else entirely.  They're as close to musically perfect as I have ever heard, yet hard to define in a class or genre.  Supermassive Black Hole is a mixture of rock, funk and RnB, Butterflies and Hurricanes blends rock and orchestral genius, and Knights of Cydonia soars over the crowd with Queen-esque guitar riffs.

But when Muse play live, it's about the whole experience.  Anybody can flash a few lights when they play music, but Muse employ the very best in lasers, pyrotechnics and video displays to create the most awesome visual performance.

Massive satellite dishes projecting laser beams into the night sky, then rotating round and scanning them over the crowd gave a space-age, almost supernatural element to the gig and helped ensure that everyone who left that stage was utterly buzzing.

The only slight disappointment of the weekend came from Amy Winehouse.  Clearly out of control of her body, she still managed to hit most of the notes but it was incoherent at best.

A couple of times she took her microphone off the stand to sing into it, but took several attempts to put it back on again, stumbling around and struggling to focus.

To her credit she drew a huge crowd to the main stage, but a large proportion of it could be described as "morbidly curious" to see this incredibly talented artist who has fallen very far from grace indeed.

Away from the bands, we were incredibly lucky with the weather, especially given the forecast.  A little bit of rain overnight on Saturday meant the campsite was slightly muddy on Sunday morning, but me and my girlfriend Sonia came prepared with wellies!

It was both her first camping experience and also her first festival too, and seen as I'd persuaded her to come along, I was hoping she'd enjoy herself!  Luckily she had a great time, although I don't think she'll do the camping bit again, unless she gets herself a warmer sleeping bag!  But overall she had a great time, as did all of our friends – roll on next year...