Glastonbury Round-up

OK, so I should write something about Glastonbury this year. I didn't go, although I seriously considered it when the tickets came on sale and then again when I found out they hadn't sold out. Anyway the line-up wasn't inspiring enough, particularly the headliners.

I watched as much of the BBC coverage as I could over the weekend but thankfully a lot of it is on the Internet.

You can see many performances here and watch the TV coverage again (for the next week) here.

The big news of the weekend was the Amy Winehouse set. She seemed to lash out at someone in the crowd while parading in front of the stage for fans. I think the person tried to grab her hair or something. That aside, the set was awful and I can't believe critics are saying how great it was. I'm not the biggest Winehouse fan at the best of times but she can sing and she can perform. But not on Saturday night. She looked ill, disorientated, shaky and unsteady on her feet. He voice was slurred and her timing was off. It was horrible. She was clearly not well but the crowd demanded a freak show and that is what they got.

The controversial Saturday headliner was Jay-Z who kicked off with a very bad cover of Wonderwall in reaction to Noel's comments about the rapper. It was a parody and a piss-take and clearly the man can't sing. But the set was decent enough even if it did get dull in the middle.

I need to catch up on the performances but I thought Elbow really embraced the festival (working the crowd and bringing on Richard Hawley for The Fix and ending with 'One Day Like This' complete with string orchestra - a highlight) and Massive Attack were very good. Duffy gave a very spirited set but looked slightly overwhelmed by the occasion and The Raconteurs were excellent as always, and kicked off with a frenzy of guitars.