Playing at a festival just before Radiohead? Intimidating. Just ask Bloc Party, who were on the defensive from the off during their second-top-of-the-bill slot at the Leeds Festival on Saturday (August 29).

Playing at the same time as Radiohead? Even more intimidating, you might think. Especially if you’re actually the one due to attempt to siphon fans from the Main Stage at the exact moment Thom Yorke and co are playing ‘Just’.

Lostprophets’ Ian Watkins combated any possible nerves by announcing that Radiohead can “kiss my fucking arse” during his band’s NME/Radio 1 Stage headline show. La Roux shrugged off the competition by suggesting that the ‘head were a completely different proposition to her electropop, so it wasn’t an issue. And for their total lack of jitters they were both rewarded with scenes of mass tent-shoving as they drew some of the biggest crowds of the weekend in their respective arenas.

Lostprophets on the NME/Radio 1 stage

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Brand New are my favourite band in America right now, and they convinced a hell of a lot of of people on the Main Stage to think the same. Their new album 'Daisy' is a dark and dazzling journey further into the depths. The music's so dark and transcendent that they've got a bit of a reputation for being a bit surly because they don't like the attention of doing interviews much.

But look, as you can see in this little video teaser from the bus, frontman Jesse Lacey is perfectly lovely!

He is, you know. And you can read the full, deep down interview in a future issue of NME. Yeah!

Here's my old chum Ritzy Bryan from rising lipsticked-MBV trio The Joy Formidable, shortly before they were awesome on the Festival Republic Stage on Saturday. They'd just arrived so they hadn't actually seen or done anything. But she's sure of one thing, she's not going to be telling anyone to wave their hands in the air...

So I was going to do a round-up of the greatest moments from Day Two at Reading, but then this one little impromptu show came and blew everything else out of the water.

Once Patrick Wolf had finished prancing round the NME/Radio 1 Stage to a yawning crowd, everything suddenly went on lock down. Passes to the area stopped working, security doubled and blaggers tripled and finally three legends surfaced in the area.

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Cards on table, I wasn't sure whether Arctic Monkeys were going to pull it off on the Main Stage at Leeds last night. I love 'Humbug' like I love Haribo Starmix, and their o2 Academy Brixton show was exactly the kind of grand reinvention that you expect from a band on their third album. But putting yourself up there for a headline show, and declaring some of your most popular songs to be 'dead'? Really? Is this a good idea?

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Everyone who claimed that Arctic Monkeys were committing career hari kiri with ‘Humbug’ is a cloth-eared, naysaying fool. It won over even the drunk girls of West Yorkshire.

This is awesome.

The ladies of the picture desk couldn’t decide which one they would out of Dave Grohl and Josh Homme. They thought John Paul Jones was a bit old.

Hollyoakswatch As At 9.15pm on Friday: Rhys, Josh, Natty.

Helders and Cookie were the only ones out of Arctic Monkeys spotted in the liggy guest bit today.

Wicked whisper: Which indier-than-thou British band decided it would be fun to change the sign on Fightstar’s dressing room cabin to ‘Busted’. Lads!

When Leeds band Chickenhawk gave a shout out to Leeds legend and NME photographer Danny North, he got a bigger cheer than the band themselves.

Ian Brown looks better with his sunglasses on.

The Chapman Family have taken all the slow songs out of their set. They reckon they're going to get a right bollocking from their management when they get to Reading. They don't care.

It’s going to be jolly nice to have Rival Schools back in the world.

Even when the most exciting meetings of rock'n'roll minds this millennium has done a super secret surprise show, one press release from Noel Gallagher can upstage the whole bloody thing. Thanks, Noel!