Sunday 25/05/08 Gatecrasher Summer Soundsystem @ Turweston Aerodome, Northamptonshire

The wind bangs on your tent like an unwanted salesman. There's tents doing forward-rolls across the campsite. And if you want to grab a cold bottle of beer to wake you up it's going to knock you back a whopping £4.50. The typical festival hangover usually subsides with the first warm can and a look at the line-up to see what treats are on offer. Even at the quagmire that was last year's Glastonbury there was a buoyancy to get out and make the most of it. Waking up today in a cold and wet aerodrome in a less than 'spacious', 'secure' and 'exclusive' VIP area (some people who have forked out extra for this 'experience' are far from happy), the first thing you notice is the complete lack of atmosphere.

Whereas yesterday thousands of eager campers were screaming the place down in anticipation of a classic weekend, today's mood is much more subdued. It's hard to tell whether it's the reports of large numbers of tents being robbed, the disgusting drink prices, or the idiot who got away with selling hundreds of cheap programmes with fake set times - even in the 'secure' VIP area - causing many to miss their favourite acts. After the promise of Saturday, Sunday is starting to feel quite strange.

It's hard to put your finger on it until you enter the arena, expecting to see Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip, and notice the main stage's massive speaker banners have completely disappeared. The rest of the stage looks like it's been through a gigantic car wash, all the electrics have been flooded by the driving rain and it's clearly not a safe environment. The outlook is not good - the main stage will have to be closed, causing frantic efforts by organisers to relocate the acts. The question on 60,000 lips is the same: "Why didn't they have contingency plans for the weather?"

After hours of hard work by Gatecrasher, Pendulum are moved to the Metropolis arena, the MySpace bus rescues the day for Sac vs. Pip, but Hot Chip and Chemical Brothers are forced to cancel outright. The statement the Chems will release shows their frustration: "In 14 years of playing live shows we have never been in a position where it has been impossible to play a show due to weather conditions." At this point news begins to filter through that a 41 year old man died after collapsing in the Cement tent last night during Pete Tong's set. Police are not connecting the death with drugs at this stage. Standing by the closed-off Cement tent in the void left from a music-less main stage is one of the worst festival experiences I've ever had.

Filthy, dirty repetitive beats is the ideal catharsis so we head to Turbo. Programmed by electro golden boy Tiga and his seminal record label, the line-up is Sunday's must-see event. As well as emerging Turbo acts like the delicious Proxy, Brodinski and Tiga himself, they've pulled in Justice and Boys Noize. Thomas Von Party and Matt Walsh kick-off the party in style, lashing the crowd with a sublime and energetic set that helps to ease the woe at the other end of the field.

Yards away from Turbo is Zane Lowe's Home Taping tent where Alex Metric is teasing the crowd with drops of 'Step On'. It's a twisted and bouncy set, as Metric fills the arena with swirls of electro and thumping bass. On the MySpace fun bus Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip are hiding any discontent with suddenly playing to 20,000 less people by putting mile-wide smiles on the select few that are crammed in-between the aisles. Pip holds the lyrics for 'Angles' up to the window for the hundreds outside to see, changing into various costumes as he does. Dan constantly has to wipe the condensation off the window, while 'Beat That My Heart Skipped' and the genius 'Letter From God' test the bus's suspension to the limit as a hundred kids upstairs and down go crazy.

It's back to Turbo next for one of the finds of the festival. Moscow's Proxy is completely incredible. He kicks-off with one of his best tracks, the mighty 'Decoy', before exposing the crowd to cuts of filthy electro and nasty, dirty analogue. Moving from slow, crunchy minimal to oppressive reverberation and grinning like a kid on Christmas Day, Proxy lifts the tent up into a frenzy.

Boys Noize takes the fever Proxy-induced fever and winds it up even more tightly. If you've never heard his ****ed-up reworking of the Kaiser Chiefs' 'Everyday I Love You Less and Less' you really should hunt down a copy (or just Hype Machine-it at least). As ever Alex Ridha rips the place apart and makes it look as easy as making a cup of tea. 'Lava Lava' and 'Down' are both irresistible slices of gritty electro swagger (some parts of the crowd hilariously sitting down for the chorus of 'Down'), and by the time he drops his work-of-art, his stunning remix of Feist's 'My Moon My Man', we've put the farce of the main stage debacle behind us.