Friday 27/06/08 Glastonbury Festival, Day One @ Worthy Farm, Pilton

At most festivals, you’re pretty sure of what is going to happen. You’ll see some bands, drink some beers and be saturated with tiredness, happiness and grubbiness by the end of it. At Glastonbury you get the above, but you might also chance upon a cult pondering in the woods, a dwarf dancing with a cow, a White Stripe playing with an Arctic Monkey, even a rapper playing to hundreds of thousands of middle-class white kids.

On Friday, things get off to a more conventional, if equally exciting start. Ida Maria performs a stellar set of theatrical, hard-edged rock. Resembling a clown lost in Shoreditch, she struts about the Other Stage with a feral sense of instability, the raciness of ‘Better When You’re Naked’ standing out.

The Rascals look desperate for recognition. In the Last Shadow Puppets, Miles Kane is lauded; as frontman of these run-of-the-mill chancers, less so. However, it isn’t that clear cut; he sings ‘Freakbeat Phantom’ with spite and bile, a trippy, distortion heavy alarming alarm. Their songs of whores and settling scores are certainly flawed, but at least touch adventure, packed with snippets of lyrical bite. Vampire Weekend are less snarling, but what they lack in edge they replace with intangible, opaque magnetism. They toy with a responsive crowd as offbeat harmonies and quirky melodies charm the drizzle into surrendering to sunshine, however shortly.

Yes, the weather. Everyone loves talking about it at Glasto. Friday’s was hideously English, mildly eccentric in its failed attempts at proper rain or real sunshine and really rather irrelevant once Foals quivered onstage to play their embracing brand of introverted pop. They make utterly nominal efforts to connect with the audience, and in doing so, the likes of ‘Cassius’ perversely engage.

Lightspeed Champion is similarly uncomfortable in the Guardian Lounge, if less arrogant. Soon though, Emmy The Great is serenading people lolling on sofas at the back while Dev Hynes filthily elegant alt-pop threatens to sum up the festival. It’s mixed, strange, tuneful, welcoming and finishes with the Star Wars theme. We Are Scientists, whose comedic charm masks a terrible new album while old songs such as ‘This Scene Is Dead’ slay those waiting for The Enemy, draft Dev in for an amiable rendition of ‘After Hours’. It’s a sign of the numerous collaborations the weekend has in store. The band though? They’re tremendously amusing, but past it after two albums.

John Cale is still going. He’s terrifying. Melding rickety blues with electronic occultism and sunshine melodies sounds inexplicably fruitless, but then you remember the Velvet Underground, so dropping other-worldly vileness in amongst heavenly gorgeousness is as natural as it is exquisite.

To headline Glastonbury, you generally need something different. Kings of Leon don’t have it. They’re like the other 400 indie bands here, but just irrefutably tighter and indisputably better. Belting out ‘On Call’ is genuinely anthemic, cavorting through a penetrative ‘McFearless’ is gripping, traversing into ‘Trani’ is grittily moving. A new song falls flat, Caleb gives a ‘speech’ consisting of two sentences, but it’s all extraneous. The Kings crown a stunning set with the rollicking mayhem of ‘Charmer’ and it’s off to Shangri-La to see a fat bloke from Bristol play Spice Girls and Motorhead hillbilly covers, while the aforementioned dwarf and cow run amok. Ah, Glastonbury.

Click through below to see bands in live action on Day One: