Here’s a flavour of the V Festival 19 & 20 August 2006.

My associates at Burn magazine covered the metallic Download 2006 leaving me to cocoon myself in the pop-rock of this year’s V Festival. Now between you and me I welcomed the opportunity, and primarily because Radiohead is the only great band I have not photographed in many years of attending live shows. But it didn’t stop there. What’s Paul Weller like live? Can Imogen Heap replicate live what she does so brilliantly on record? Does The Feeling deserve the hype and sales? Can Faithless still lift spirits? Will Razorlight raise the roof? How many punters will prefer to watch Kasabian than pay homage to Radiohead? What are the Editors like? There’s an underground buzz surrounding Crimea - why? Are The Dandy Warhols still one of the best live bands around?

These and many more questions were answered at V Festival 2006. Last year I fried, this year I drowned. Yup, day one was very wet and the rain refused to budge. While my associate wandered off to catch unknown Gavin De Graw I waited for The Dandy Warhols and was rewarded with a ‘best-of’ show of supreme quality. I remember the first time I witnessed the band live in Manchester and buying two of the band’s albums at the merch stand immediately after the show. This was a polished performance devoid of animation but overflowing with artistry and great songs.

Earlier this year Morning Runner released a great but criminally overlooked debut album. V provided the opportunity for many to witness just how good the band and the album are, and the guys grasped the opportunity with one of the performances of the festival.

There’s a major buzz around The Feeling at the moment and a debut album that stormed the charts reaching number one. Not having heard the album I was eager to suck and see. I was impressed. The lead lad performed with heart and soul, the band was as tight as fuck, and every one of the songs was recited by the excited audience. There was something special going on here that earned this little gig a top V fest rating.

Hard Fi hit the main stage running with lead lad Archer leading the onslaught although appearing to be in some discomfort, while bass man Stephens seemed impervious and invisible in his nifty black optics. It was a good show, but not a great one.

Imogen Heap is an eccentric, enigmatic singer/songwriter who in 2006 has released one of our albums of the year. So it was to the JJB Tent that I swam to catch my first glimpse of the lady live. A tent full of devotees that share the secret were treated to a festival highlight. Surrounded by banks of electronics, and brilliant coloured blooms an unpretentious Heap proceeded to chat and sing her way into my personal performance history book. It was an extraordinary exhibition of new album tracks crammed with instrumental dexterity, and a voice of quite stunning quality and range.