Lips closed down

Also suffering at the weekend were the Flaming Lips, one of the headliners at an attempt to transplant the V festival to Canada. Due to a series of sloppy timekeepers, the Lips had just less than thirty minutes left to play before the festival's 11pm curfew.

Waste of Paint's blog is pretty good on some of the frustrations of the organisation of the event - Kid Koala was cut short to try and make up some of the time, but Gnarls Barkley were given a full hour, with the clock not starting until the end of their somewhat protracted setting-up. The end result was the headline band not getting to start until 10.40, which seems to be extraordinary.

The second day seemed to run more smoothly, with The Strokes at least able to play a full headline set, and it seems to have been enough of a moneyspinner ("success") to please one attendee:

Virgin chief Richard Branson, meanwhile, appeared on stage promising that the festival will return to Toronto next year, while organizers also discussed the possibility of adding a leg in Montreal copying the Stafford and Chelmsford set up of the UK original.

So, as if it wasn't bad enough that all over the world we munch the same burgers, drink the same beers, watch the same TV and whack off to the same porn, we're now going to start to get a homogenised festival experience as well. Because if V has a North American leg, then it's clear that Glasto and/or Reading, with their American parent company, will have to compete. We expect they'll fly genuine Somerset cowpats in so Glasto-in-Wichita-Falls is the real deal.

music v festival