We'll let you in on a little secret behind festival line-up selection that you might not have known about: bands are booked six months in advance.

Which would explain why the view are headlining over, say, Biffy Clyro - who played to a substantially larger crowd a couple of hours ago.

Sure, there are the typical cries of "The View, The View are on fire", but they're muted compared to what they would have been six months ago.

Best Song: 'Wasteland'

Best Moment: When Kyle Falconer spits a wad out before 'Same Jeans' and it hits solidly against a bald security guard's bonce.

The View played:

'Comin' Down'
'Screaming'
'Dance Into The Night'
'Wasted Little DJs'
'Don't Tell Me'
'Street Lights'
'The Don'
'Gran's For Tea'
'Skag Trendy'
'Fireworks And Flowers'
'Posh Boys'
'Wasteland'
'Typical Time'
'Face For The Radio'
'Same Jeans'
'Superstar Tradesman'

The best thing about seeing We Are Scientists tonight is, quite simply, you're not watching the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Don't believe me? Well, perhaps you'll believe my good friend Mr Kele Okereke - he's here, with a mystery female, nodding his head in approval.

'The Great Escape', 'It's A Hit', 'Lousy Reputation' - for a self-proclaimed humanist rock act, We Are Scientists are adept at pushing the crowd into throes of religious passion. We even notice Okereke glance at the crowd and shake his head in disbelief.

Best Song: 'Nobody Move, Nobody Gets Hurt'

Best Moment: When the blow-up doll on a stick that had been floating around the NME/Radio 1 stage all day finally pops during 'It's A Hit'.

The sun's still out - that's the only way we can tell that Biffy aren't headlining.

Otherwise, all the signs are here: a tent packed to beyond capacity, a veritible legion of people chanting their name, and a squadron of girls up front crying as they sing along to 'Get Fucked Stud'.

I'm standing on a side-stage platform overlooking the crowd, and I can tell you this: from front to back, everyone's holding their arms aloft for 'Folding Stars'. They should considering themselves lucky - this is the last time Biffy say they'll play it.

As for my previous method of determining a band's emergent popularity: Biffy managed TWELVE ranks of people standing outside the tent.

Best Song: Must we choose? Oh, alright then: 'Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies'

Best Moment: Realising that's Simon Neil is playing the intro to 'Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies', and that's not a sample.

The Twang were meant to play festivals, as anyone who's suffered through a concert of theirs will attest to.

In the realm of easy, drugged-up public approval that constitutes a festival atmosphere, they excel.

Had they deviated in any way from their 'aving-it-large-two-pints-please-i-just-dropped-one' formula tonight, it would have been a shambles. But no, they bounce about like baggy never died, and for the 70% of the audience that were teenagers when Shaun Ryder was proving that all that ugly people needed to have fun was lots of E, The Twang fill a hole.

Best Song: 'Wide Awake'

Best Moment: When Phil Etheridge says "fookin' hell" for the 176th time.

If you're a band that hasn't been of any importance for nigh-on two decade, landing a slot in the last quarter of the NME/Radio 1 Stage yields certain benefits.

Namely, 3,000 people who will to listen to your music, no questions asked. It's the first time in 19 years the classic Dinosaur Jr line-up has been brought together (err..they were here in 2005 too, after 17 years, on the Main Stage - Ed), but nobody seems fussed - as evidenced by the distinct lack of a Dinosaur Jr hardcore bobbing up and down up front.

As for the much heralded new album 'Beyond', even fans have trouble telling old and new tracks apart. It's great that they've buried hatchets and mended wounds, but if nobody notices you've reunited (apart from Biffy Clyro standing side-stage), you have to ask - was it worth it?

Best Song: 'Almost Ready'

Best Moment: When frontman J Mascis brushes aside his hair, revealing that, yes, he has a face.

Does it matter that The Pigeon Detectives blow their best song ('She Found Out') as on opener?

Hell naw, judging by the crowd at hand, The Pigeon Detectives could play their songs backwards at double speed and they'd still be greeted with similiar adoration.

As a seasoned festival reporter, I've had time to work out a good yardstick for a band's emergent popularity at a festival, and it is thus: five ranks of people extending outside a tent.

The PDs manage seven.

Another useful measure is how many fans, caught up in the ecstasy of a band, prove so exuberant that security needs to punch them square in the jaw to calm them down after they surf past the barriers.

I count five.

Is it worth getting your jaw broken in honour of The Pigeon Detectives? The statistics speak for themselves.

Best Song: 'I Found Out'

Best Moment: Singer Matt Bowman asking "Who do you hate more, Reading or terrorists?" It's a new twist on the debate, you've got to give him that.