It’s raining in Paris. And it’s August. Bummer. Looking on the bright side, though, we have two days of top-notch rock ‘n’ roll to look forward to. Knew there was a reason why we came here, and it wasn’t for the baguettes, mon cherie.

The Subways have been picked to kick things off on the second stage, and the teen prodigies are only too happy to take the bull by the horns and slaughter it mercilessly. The power trio come out with guns blazing, letting rip with ‘With You’, and the crowd duly proceed to go nuts. Billy Lunn’s guitar sound is crystal clear, a perfect setting for his raw crunching riffs as the Subways tear through ‘Young For Eternity’, ‘City Pavement’ and ‘Oh Yeah’ with all the zest and energy you’d expect from a youthful punk rock group at the top of their game. The guys from Welwyn Garden don’t put a foot wrong throughout the whole set, and probably the highlight is their rocky paean to their first meeting, ‘At 1AM’, when Lunn and bassist Charlotte Cooper’s voices spar off one another with all the chemistry you’d expect a sexy young couple to generate. They close out the set with ‘Rock n Roll Queen’, and given their tender years, it’s an impressive fact that these come dangerously close to being the best act of the festival.

Pity poor Athlete. You might think that the sudden re-emergence of the sun would have helped their cause, but from the minute lead singer Joel Pott takes to the stage it’s pretty clear that his indie-kid shoegazer simperings aren’t gonna cut it live. The band don’t suffer from a poor sound – all the instruments are pretty clear – it’s more that it doesn’t work well when delivered live in a festival environment. After the last act, it’s a bit like following a wild alcohol-fuelled weekend binge with a cup of cocoa and a biscuit; it’s drearily slow and soporific, and even the single ‘Wire’ doesn’t raise so much as a cheer. Put bluntly, the Frenchies are having none of their Coldplayesque naval-worshipping whinings, and frankly, neither are we.

The Arcade Fire have been hyped as one of the most exciting new bands to emerge from 2005, and in fairness the Canadian sextet have a somewhat different approach to their music, not least because of the addition of two violinists. We’re hitting the main stage now and the crowds are gathering – it’s been raining intermittently but the Frenchies are out in force now looking for some rock n roll, but this isn’t what they get from these; in fact they don’t really get much of anything at all. It’s all quite relaxing stuff, but there are very few songs that really stand out or stick in the mind afterwards. It doesn’t help that for some reason the sound on the main stage isn’t too clear – you can hardly hear the violinists at all, which is a shame, because Win Butler’s singing and guitar-playing are pretty unremarkable. Towards the end of their set the Arcade Fire momentarily find some form with forthcoming single ‘Rebellion (Lies)’, probably their only tune with a decent hook in it. Overall, they’re not great, but they’re not bad either. Interesting. That’s the word we’re looking for.

When Queens of the Stone strut onstage and start playing, it’s pretty clear that the muddy sound on the main stage is set to claim some heavyweight scalps tonight. Singer Nick Oliveri struggles to deliver what would otherwise be a fiery set, and the two-guitar sound that the band have developed so well doesn’t really cut through, with Mark Lanegan’s guitar sounding indistinct and hazy. This becomes painfully clear on the normally slicing interlocking riffing on ‘Little Sister’, but Oliveri’s ethereal vocals do at least manage to kick through on ‘In My Head’, and ‘No One Knows’ is an unstoppable force when played live: even with such lousy sound, the crowd are totally having it, swaying drunkenly as the band tear the delicious main riff from the wall of noise and spread it across the park with unholy glee. This is one act that was made to perform and deliver tunes live, and they make the best of a pretty fucked up situation that’s most likely not their fault, but overall it’s still a disappointing scenario. Somebody shoot the sound engineer.

By the time alt-rock veterans Pixies shuffle on, night has fallen and the Parisian crowd have whipped themselves up into an alcohol-fuelled frenzy. Frank Black takes the stage with customary aplomb, and the  band quickly set about showing how little difference a dodgy sound-rig makes to their honed set. Indie rock anthems ‘Debaser’ and ‘Here Comes Your Man’ have the crowd singing their hearts out and before long the Pixies have worked their magic on us and we’re transported back to the halcyon days of the early 90s underground rock scene.

Black and bassist Kim Deal’s vocals blend sweetly on ‘Monkey’s Gone To Heaven’, and the neatest trick they pull is at the end of the set, which they finish out with a medley of ‘Gouge Away’, ‘Tame’ and ‘Wave of Mutilation’, which they play back to back. Cleaver choreography, especially on the first two numbers, which both use the quiet verse/loud chorus technique that became the Pixies’ trademark sound. It’s a tight, highly professional set, and Black roughs it up nicely with the vocals, while Deal’s voice is as crystal clear as ever, despite the dead sound engineer.