V Festival, Weston Park, Staffordshire - it was billed as Mopefest, but even the angst ridden music of Morrissey and Radiohead could not dampen the spirits of the rain-soaked festival-goers at V.
In fact, if the 130,000 people who came to the Midlands' only rock festival could not rely on the weather, the organisers pulled off a masterstroke in booking two of the most consistent and reliable performers of recent years.
Both acts lived up to expectations, although Morrissey had one minor blemish in an otherwise flawless set.
His attempt to flog his new single via mobile phone text messaging was at best unsavoury, at worst a breach of his fans' trust, but he opened and finished his set with two Smiths classics - Panic and How Soon Is Now - and filled the space in between with some brilliantly-executed new material.
His backing band, slightly overweight but wearing Italian suits and football shirts, were breathtaking in their delivery.
Radiohead also delivered with a mixture of a handful of unreleased tracks and classics from OK Computer and The Bends and a few lesser-known tracks from Amnesiac and Kid A.
Other highlights from V were Birmingham's favourite gloom merchants Editors. The skinny indie kings went through a now well-known set from their debut album and upped the tempo with All Sparks.
Bloc Party gave their all with their last UK set until early 2007, particularly with their last song Helicopter. This year's V Festival began with doom and gloom brought on by the weather and ended with a party spirit that has been apparent in Weston Park in recent years. It just goes to show that if the weather attempts to kill the crowd's spirits the quality of music is all that's needed to make this a weekend which- in the words of Hard Fi - is hard to beat.
