Playlouder - Music is the Network

It all starts so well. Wandering through the midday sun into Victoria Park, there's a quiet, anticipatory atmosphere of a lark impending. People are sat on the grass, listening to the dolorious / melodious Absentee opening proceedings, while I'm overjoyed to discover that the bar doesn't merely sell the usual gassy, headache-inducing lagers, but has four casks of nut-brown ale on offer for a very reasonable three pounds a pint. Our initial recee of the site bodes well too, revealing intimate stages and tents, a pleasing wooded area in which to escape the glare of the sun, and a mad-faced old bastard inviting us to lob balls at coconuts... it's a far cry from a few hours later, where queues to fill up with liquid (and subsequent queues to send it forth), begin to dominate every vista across the site; women's bottoms appear from behind tents in urinary desperation, and one poor soul can be seen screaming at a security guard to let her out of the site. All the negative stuff (see myspace and messageboards-aplenty) is a real shame, for there's no doubt that with a bit more forward planning and anticipation Field Day could be a highlight of the summer season. It's an opportunity squandered.

Early arrivals are treated with zero queues and a couple of great performances to get proceedings under way. A luncheon of Old Speckled Hen means that it's with an apt and muzzy feeling of goodwill and bonhomie that greets Caribou on the mainstage. Largely showcasing material from new album 'Andorra', Caribou-formerly-Manitoba's percussive pyschedelia suits the mood well, at times verdant and fragrant as the Parks' ash trees, at others looming like the Victorian monument on the other side of the fence.

In the Adventures in the Beetroot Field tent (however will everyone fit in there for Liars?) Florence And The Machine is/are doing her Violet-Elisabeth-Bott-doing-the-blues shtick. Rumour is that the hyped madame has fired the machine-who-was-in-the-shitty-Ludes, and instead is hooking up with whichever hipster troubadour she can get her hands on. Through the murk it looks like Kid Harpoon, so we wisely sidle back to the main stage in time for Fridge, who turn things all very ATP in the sun. As our man Merek points out, how apt it is that we're faced with a load of noodling post rock from the 1990s just before the, er, 1990s arrive onstage. Not that we get to see them, mind, as we're stuck in a queue for the bar for the duration of their set, sandwiched in a sweaty throng as the sun beats down and every whisper of a cooling breeze feels like it comes from the breath of an angel. Visions of a jet pack to float over the man with three cheekbones who's craftily snuck past us flicker in front of the eyes... The forty-five minute queue is such a demoralising experience that it's the last time we attempt to assault the bar all day. Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun - but the latter do require some lubrication to make the experience bearable.

The otherwise excellent line-up then goes a bit wrong for a wee while, with the aforementioned Kid Harpoon's drippy folk, Adem's smug folk, and Chromeo's ironyometer-busting hipster funk the only options for entertainment, other than to marvel at the comet trails of queues that are by now building across the site. Then its back to the main stage to catch Foals. I've yet to be 100 per-cent convinced by these chaps, though I wouldn't go as far as Jeremy's simmering hatred. Today they win me a little more into their favour, largely through the clear brilliance of the precise musicianship on display, but to my tastes it still feels like there's something missing. There's the geek element from the mathrock background, and the dance imperative that currently makes Foals about the hippest band in Britain, but I for one to find an edge, any grit, or raw, elemental passion.

Electrelane, packing out the Beetroot Fields tent, certainly have that in spades these days. Most recent album 'No Shouts, No Calls' is undoubtedly a career highlight, and they play with confidence and panache in the early evening light. It's just a shame that their set is so unfortunately brief. It's at this point that the sound problems of the festival really make themselves felt. Archie Bronson Outfit are doing their very best to deliver their dark fury on the Homefires stage, but the amplification is puny, and the band are obviously extremely frustrated, advising the crowd that they come and see them "at a proper gig." Archie Bronson Outfit are usually one of the fiercest and finest live acts around, yet tonight their potential is sadly neutered. Even worse befalls Battles, back on the mainstage. For the first half of their set it's as if the PA hasn't even been turned on. When the sound comes back, it's all over the place, rendering the mighty single-of-the-year candidate 'Atlas' more molehill than customary mountain.

The concern from now on in is all about getting a decent spot for Liars, to the extent of hanging around to be bewildered quite why everyone is so excited about the ADD racket of Late of the Pier, who prance around half naked, covered in felt tip pen. The youth these days...

Anyway, last time I saw Liars, at White Heat, it was something of a shambles. The sound was all over the place, the new fourth member clearly hadn't quite worked out why he was there, and Angus Andrews' usual deranged passion was somewhat awry. Yet tonight, despite the fact that they come onstage half an hour late, it's clear from the first shimmers of 'Be Quiet Mt. Heart Attack' that this is going to be something of a return to form. Actually, sod that, this surpasses form - and when you consider that Liars are arguably one of the best live bands of the century so far, this is no small feat. Everything Foals lack, Liars have in buckets with some to spare. Theirs is a peculiar blend of eccentricity, serious experimentation, dark comedy, deranged stoner gimp-play and camp muscle that, when it gels, is like nothing else you'll encounter. And tonight it does that, and no mistake.

New album opener 'Plaster Casts of Everything' is a relentless, exhilarating grind. Freed up by his new bandmate, Andrews is off in place of his very own, gradually stripping off his fancy white three piece suit, pretending a green towel is a turd falling from his arse, running around the stage as if being pursued by imaginary foes, screaming, exhorting. The sound is fatter, nastier, yet more accessible and, for the first time in the day, it feels as if we're surrounded by people who, booze or no booze and queues notwithstanding, are being carried away by the music to having the time of their lives. If they continue on this trajectory, this could be the year that Liars bust out of their cult hero status to wider adoration. If Field Day, as they seem to be promising, install a few more bars and bogs next time around, their festival could be one of the most exciting around.

Whatever, Liars make for a great ending that rescues a rum old day, to be concluded drinking super strength Guiness in London Fields, marvelling at an East London park deserted, peaceful, and free of the lines and lines of brightly coloured jeans and three quarter-length tights shuffling slowly forth, that tonight, like some terrible blend of Nathan Barley and Fantasia, will haunt my dreams...